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LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 


HIS    HOLINESS— POPE    PIUS   X. 


LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 


POPE    PIUS    X 


-W 


BY 


A    MODERNIST 


(2nd    Edition) 


CHICAGO 
THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

LONDON  AGENTS 

KEGAN  PAUL.  TRENCH.  TRUBNER  &  CO..  Ltd. 
1911 


Copyright 

by 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  CO.,  CHICAGO 

1910 


CONTENTS 


Letter 

I. 

Letter 

II. 

Letter 

III. 

Letter 

IV. 

Letter 

V. 

Letter 

VI. 

Letter 

VII. 

Letter 

VIII. 

Letter 

IX. 

Letter 

X. 

Letter 

XI. 

Letter 

XII. 

Letter 

XIII. 

Letter 

XIV. 

Letter 

XV. 

Letter 

XVI. 

Letter 

XVII. 

PAKT  I— LETTERS 

PAGE 

The  need  for  These  Letters 3 

The  Purpose  of  Them 7 

The  Purpose  of  Them  (continued) 10 

What  is  Religion  ? 11 

The  Attitude  of  the  Modern  World  Towards 

Official  Catholicism 14 

The  Papacy  and  Freedom  of  Conscience 18 

The  Inquisition 25 

The  Inquisition  (continued) 34 

Can  Infallibility  Survive  the  Inquisition?.  ...  42 

Our  Duty  of  Seeking  Truth 46 

Has  the  Papacy  Changed  Its  Attitude  Towards 

Freedom  of  Conscience? 50 

The  Papacy  and  Representative  Government.  .  58 

Italian  Absolutism 63 

Roman  Legates  and  "Fathers  General".  ....  69 

Indulgences 85 

Worship  in  Spirit  and  in  Truth 97 

The  Present  Discipline  of  Celibacy 105 

V 


vi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Letter  XVIII.     Church  and  State 130 

Letter      XIX.     Freedom  of  Intellect 151 

Letter        XX.     The  Jesuits  and  Intellectual  Tyranny 172 

Letter      XXI.     The  Opportunity  of  Catholicism 186 

PAET   II.— FAITH   AND   CRITICISM. 

Chapter      I.     Phases  of  Dogmatic  Interpretation 195 

Chapter    II.     The  Old  Testament  in  New  Light 205 

Chapter  III.     Are  the  Gospels  Merely  History? 218 

Chapter  IV.     The  Theologian  in  the  Synoptics 227 

Chapter     V.     Christ 's  Conception  of  the  Kingdom 245 

Chapter  VI.     "What  Think  Ye  of  Christ?" 270 

Epilogue   276 


INTRODUCTION 

T^HE  author  of  these  letters  to  his  Holiness,  Pope  Pius 
•*■  X,  is  not  known  to  me  personally,  but  I  have  heard 
enough  about  him  to  form  a  vivid  picture  of  his  char- 
acter and  attitude.  My  source  of  information  is  not 
limited  to  Catholics ;  in  fact,  my  acquaintance  with  him 
is  due  to  a  widely  known  Protestant  theologian,  who 
lives  in  one  of  our  Eastern  metropolitan  cities. 

Judging  from  what  I  know,  the  author  is  a  devout 
Christian  and  also  a  good  Catholic  in  the  broad  sense 
of  the  word.  He  has  been  an  active  priest  for  many 
years,  and  is  devoted  to  his  pastoral  work.  But  his  piety 
has  suffered  severe  shocks  and  he  is  fretting  under  the 
conflict  between  the  ideal  he  cherishes  and  the  realization 
with  which,  to  his  deep  regret,  he  finds  so  much  fault. 
The  result  is  a  state  of  mind  which  can  be  imagined  from 
these  letters  to  the  highest  ecclesiastical  authority.  They 
are  written  in  the  hope  that  His  Holiness  will  hear  the 
voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  If  we  are  not  mistaken 
in  the  signs  of  the  time,  this  voice  is  not  isolated.  It 
finds  a  strong  resonance  in  the  minds  of  many  pious 
Catholics,  who  realize  that  it  would  not  be  wise  to  speak 
out  boldly  because  of  the  subtle  methods  of  the  organized 
hierarchy,  which  have  hitherto  proved  very  efficient  in 
meeting  any  attempt  at  reform.     It  is  easy  enough  to 

vii 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION 

force  the  discontented  out  of  the  church,  but  the  church 
would  scarcely  be  benefited  thereby. 

These  letters  are  not  intended  to  create  a  sensation, 
but  to  prepare  for  a  future  which,  in  moments  of  en- 
thusiasm, seems  near  at  hand.  They  have  a  twofold 
purpose.  On  the  one  hand,  our  author  wants  to  make 
the  Curia  feel  its  enormous  responsibility,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  to  educate  both  priest  and  layman  for  the 
work  of  reconstruction. 

The  author,  in  his  recent  correspondence,  expresses 
the  purpose  which  he  has  in  mind  as  follows : 

"Nothing  can  be  truer  than  your  declaration  that 
one  who  would  work  for  reform  needs  to  examine  his 
conscience  as  to  his  motives.  I  can  say  in  very  solemn 
truth  that  before  setting  to  work  on  the  'Letters'  I  ex- 
amined mine.  Two  years  before  I  put  pen  to  the  final 
writing  I  made  a  beginning  on  them — and  tore  up  what 
I  had  written  because  not  yet  satisfied  that  I  ought  to 
undertake  so  grave  a  responsibility.  All  the  thought 
that  I  could  bring  to  the  decision,  as  well  as  all  the  coun- 
sel I  could  get,  preceded  the  determination  to  go  ahead 
with  the  work.  So  far  as  I  can  read  the  processes  of 
mind  and  conscience  that  issued  in  the  decision  to  write 
the  book,  these  two  considerations  were  foremost.  First, 
to  do  a  work  of  education  among  the  priests  of  the  church. 
I  know  that  body  of  men  well — their  nobility,  their  vague 
aspirations,  their  concealed  sufferings — and  I  am  convinced 
to  a  degree  of  absolute  certainty  that  the  first  step  toward 
progress,  and  a  primary  need  of  truth,  is  to  e*1,,**»*te  them 


INTRODUCTION  IX 

— to  undo,  in  part,  anyhow,  the  results  of  a  training  in 
self-repression,  which  begins  often  when  they  are  chil- 
dren of  fourteen  and  fifteen — and  leaves  them  for  life 
with  crippled  personalities  and  perverted  minds.  Second- 
ly, I  desired  to  show — and  make  the  effort,  in  the  second 
part  of  the  book — that  dark  and  painful  as  the  collapse 
of  a  cherished  orthodoxy  is — still,  when  criticism  has 
done  its  worst,  it  leaves  us  a  splendid  Christ  to  revere, 
and  an  immortal  spirit  to  purify  and  love.  I  hope  that 
the  book  is  both  educational  and  constructive.  I  trust 
it  attacks  nothing  that  Truth  itself  and  Progress  are  not 
attacking — and  that  it  has  something  to  offer  for  all 
that  it  takes  away.  At  all  events,  every  word  of  it  is 
written  in  sincerity,  and  many  words  of  it  were  written 
in  feelings  which,  if  possible,  are  deeper  still." 

In  further  comment  I  may  add  a  word  of  my  own. 

I  know  the  attraction  which  the  Catholic  church  has, 
and  at  the  same  time  I  know  the  shortcomings  of  Prot- 
estantism. Many  Protestants  look  upon  art  as  pagan, 
if  not  as  superstitious,  while  Catholicism  has  inherited, 
or  rather  gradually  acquired,  the  beauty  of  old  paganism. 
Pope  Leo  X,  when  rebuilding  St.  Peter's,  crowned 
the  cross  of  the  aisles  with  the  Pantheon  in  conscious 
recognition  of  his  intention  to  have  Christians  imbued 
with  the  spirit  of  classical  antiquity.  This  Pope,  who 
was  incapable  of  understanding  the  zeal  of  Luther  and 
who  is  often  denounced  by  Protestants  as  an  infidel  and 
a  pagan,  was,  in  his  way,  a  reformer  of  the  church. 
His  love  of  art,  quite  in  contradiction  to  the  tendencies 


X  INTRODUCTION 

of  early  Christianity,  has  become  an  inheritance  of  the 
Roman  church,  while  Protestants,  in  contrast  to  Catho- 
lics, have  retained  to  a  great  extent  a  hostile  attitude  to 
art.    This  is  especially  true  of  the  Puritans. 

Both  Confessions,  Romanism  and  Protestantism,  have 
pursued  their  ideals  in  their  own  ways.  By  concentrating 
their  fervor  on  truth  irrespective  of  consequences,  Prot- 
estant savants  have  worked  out  philosophy,  science,  and 
Biblical  criticism,  and  have  made  science  the  basis  of  a 
new  and  higher  civilization.  The  inheritance  of  Catholics 
has  been  limited  to  art  and  mystical  devotion,  and  what- 
ever may  be  wrong  in  it,  Protestantism  is  now  ready  to 
broaden  and  to  accept  of  art  what  is  good  and  noble. 
Superstitions,  at  least  so  far  as  belief  in  legend  and 
literalism  is  concerned,  have  in  Protestant  countries  en- 
tirely lost  their  hold  on  the  human  mind  and  there  is  no 
danger  of  a  relapse.  It  is  time  that  the  two  hostile 
brothers  should  share  their  inheritance,  and  while  Prot- 
estants would  welcome  art,  Catholics  might  recognize 
the  right  of  free  inquiry  and  admit  to  scientific  truth  a 
place  in  their  theology. 

Should  the  Roman  Catholic  church  not  conform  to 
the  demands  of  the  time,  should  the  Curia  continue  to 
prevent  a  reformation  so  much  needed,  it  is  quite  prob- 
able that  many  pious  souls  will  break  away  from  Rome 
and  originate  a  genuine  Catholic  church.  There  are  not 
a  few  who  cling  devoutly  to  the  traditional  form  of 
worship,  but  who  are  dissatisfied  with  the  narrowness 
of  the  old  ecclesiastical  institutions. 


INTRODUCTION  XI 

The  present  Catholic  church  is  not  Catholic  but  is 
Italian,  and  even  Roman.  Its  first  principle  is  that  only 
an  Italian  can  become  Pope,  and  among  the  Cardinals 
few  non-Italians  are  tolerated  in  order  to  keep  the  bal- 
ance of  power  in  Italy.  Will  the  time  ever  come  when 
the  Roman  Catholic  church  will  drop  the  epithet  "Ro- 
man" and  be  simply  a  Catholic  church  in  which  Romans, 
Americans,  English  and  Germans  are  on  a  parity? 

In  case  Rome  should  be  impervious  to  the  kindly  ad- 
vice of  her  sons,  would  not  the  natural  outcome  be  a 
Catholic  church  independent  of  Rome? 

The  situation  reminds  us  of  Christ's  lamentation  over 
Jerusalem  in  Luke  xix.  41-42:  "And  when  he  was  come 
near,  he  beheld  the  city,  and  wept  over  it,  saying,  'If  thou 
hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in  this  thy  day,  the 
things  which  belong  unto  thy  peace !  but  now  they  are 
hid  from  thine  eyes.'  '  Let  the  men  who  have  the  ear 
of  Pius  X  read  the  handwriting  on  the  wall. 

P.  C. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE  TO  FIRST  EDITION 

T^ATHER  TYRRELL,  less  than  a  year  before  his  too 
early  death,  said,  speaking  of  Modernism  in  Amer- 
ica: "I  cannot  understand  America.  With  its  free- 
dom and  intelligence,  its  representatives  ought  to  be 
in  the  forefront  of  the  Modernist  movement.  Yet  Mod- 
ernism has  produced  there  hardly  an  echo.  The  Church 
in  America  is  asleep ;  and  I  can  conceive  nothing  that 
will  awaken  it,  but  the  production  of  some  book  native 
to  the  soil,  which  will  raise  so  loud  a  cry  of  reform  that 
all  who  have  ears  must  hear." 

The  disappointment  expressed  in  these  words  has 
been  felt  and  uttered  by  practically  all  the  leading  Mod- 
ernists of  Europe.  On  his  visit  here  two  years  ago, 
Houtin  said  that  Roman  Catholicism  in  this  country  was 
in  almost  primeval  darkness,  and  all  but  blind  to  what 
shall  probably  be  considered  one  of  the  most  momentous 
agitations  of  Christian  history.  Loisy  in  his  mild  way 
has  wondered  at  the  lack  of  intellectual  activity  among 
American  Catholics,  and  Ehrhardt  has  expressed  himself 
on  the  subject  in  terms  of  summary  contempt,  declaring 
in  substance  that  the  Church  in  America  has  yet  to  show 
the  first  sign  of  the  possession  of  scholarship  in  the  face 
of  modern  problems. 

The  astonishment  and  regret  of  these  men  are  per- 

xiii 


XIV  AUTHOR  S    PREFACE 

fectly  natural.  They  are  engaged  in  a  movement  for  a 
religious  life  which  shall  be  intelligent  and  free.  They 
are  seeking  to  prove  that  religion  is  greater  than  the 
formulas  which  once  were  thought  adequate  to  express 
it ;  that  the  life  of  the  spirit  is  not  of  so  contemptible  a 
value  as  to  be  menaced  because  a  text  is  shown  to  be 
spurious,  or  a  devout  legend  unmasked ;  and  that  in  seek- 
ing religious  truth  the  intelligence  of  mankind  ought  not 
to  be  submitted  to  the  coercion  of  any  external  authority, 
save  the  sovereign  authority  of  critical  and  scientific  evi- 
dence. What  was  more  to  be  expected  then,  than  that 
they  should  look  for  support  to  America,  and  to  their 
co-religionists  in  America?  Whence  could  a  more  zealous 
advocacy  of  Modernism  have  rightly  been  anticipated? 
To  what  other  country  could  a  movement  for  emanci- 
pation, intellectual  and  spiritual,  turn  with  more  confi- 
dent assurance?  The  assurance  was  all  the  greater,  as 
from  among  us  had  appeared  Modernism's  precursor, 
Americanism.  The  late  Pope  condemned  tendencies, 
which  he  said  existed  here,  toward  an  undue  independ- 
ence, a  restiveness  under  venerable  restraints,  and  a 
general  attitude  of  novelty,  of  experiment,  and  of  mod- 
ernizing. And  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  these  admo- 
nitions of  January,  1899,  were  received  here  with  con- 
siderably more  coolness  than  was  to  the  fancy  of  the 
Papal  court. 

Americanism  is  a  word  that  connotes  patriotism.  It 
seems  to  embrace  all  that  is  indigenous  to  this  republic 
and  is  typical  of  it ;  and  whatever  becomes  of  Biblical 


AUTHOR  S    PREFACE  XV 

criticism,  or  the  philosophy  of  dogmatic  conformity,  the 
mass  of  Catholics  in  this  country  will  not  be  un-Amer- 
ican. So  the  Testis  benevolentice,  which  laid  Rome's 
solemn  disapproval  upon  Americanism,  was  not  received 
with  enthusiasm,  and  raised  indeed  in  some  quarters  a 
levity  not  far  removed  from  disdain  which  fitted  ill  with 
the  letter's  august  source.  It  assuredly  loosened  rather 
than  tied  more  firmly  the  bonds  uniting  America  to 
Rome. 

But  before  going  to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  a  word 
must  be  said  concerning  the  magnitude  of  this  question 
of  Modernism.  It  is  not  a  squabble  intra  parietes,  one 
of  the  petty  ecclesiastical  quarrels  which  the  student  of 
large  problems  can  afford  to  despise.  It  is  fundamentally 
a  great  question  of  spiritual  liberty,  attended,  as  advanc- 
ing liberty  nearly  always  is,  with  the  tragic  element 
of  suffering,  as  men  strive  to  reach  forward  to  the  new 
light  of  the  intellect  while  not  relinquishing  the  ancient 
loyalties  of  the  heart.  It  has  brought  a  crisis  perhaps  of 
life  and  death  to  the  mightiest  religious  organization  that 
has  ever  existed  among  men.  It  aims  at  a  restatement 
of  the  creed,  a  revolutionary  change  in  the  external 
polity,  and  a  regeneration  of  the  inner  spirit  of  the 
mother-church  of  Christendom.  Upon  the  issue  of  it  de- 
pends, to  an  extent  which  those  who  know  the  move- 
ment best  are  most  inclined  to  magnify,  the  future  place 
of  Roman  Catholicism  in  the  history  of  civilization. 

Will  the  Church,  which  was  once  the  arbiter  of  Eu- 
rope,'turn  aside  from  traditions  of  secular  ambition  and 


xvi  author's  preface 

authority  ?  Will  the  great  tribunal  which  retains  its  Index, 
still  a  power,  and  its  Inquisition,  now  a  shadow,  say  to  the 
scholar:  "I  will  not  interfere  with  you;  be  free!"  and 
to  the  heretic  :  "I  will  not  anathematize  you ;  be  sincere !"  ? 
Will  the  institution  which,  claiming  absolute  infallibility, 
has  moulded  the  minds  of  its  devout  adherents  to  total 
submissiveness,  modify  its  claim,  and  relax  the  obedience 
in  which  it  holds  half  the  civilized  world?  These  are  the 
questions  raised  by  Modernism.  This  is  the  crisis  which 
has  wrung  a  cry  of  terror  from  the  present  Pope.  And 
the  crisis  is  of  so  impressive  a  magnitude,  extending  in- 
deed to  other  orthodoxies  over  and  beyond  the  Roman ; 
it  is  so  full  of  possibilities  for  the  religious  history  of  the 
future  that  the  interest  in  it  must  appeal  not  only  to  the 
Roman  Catholic,  but  to  every  man  reflective  enough  to 
read  history  in  the  events  that  happen  before  his  eyes. 

Why  then  has  the  Church  in  the  United  States  taken 
so  small  a  part  in  the  agitation?  Principally  for  two  rea- 
sons :  "First,  Modernism,  while  not  wholly,  is  predomi- 
nantly, an  intellectual  movement.  It  began  in  Biblical 
criticism  with  Loisy,  Lagrange,  and  Minocchi,  all  under 
the  influence  of  German  scholarship.  It  pushed  its  re- 
searches into  the  history  of  dogma  and  comparative  re- 
ligion, with  Cumont,  Turmel,  and  Batiffol.  And  it  ended 
in  philosophy,  with  an  attempt  at  reconstruction  and  re- 
conciliation, under  the  leadership  of  Blondel,  Laberthon- 
niere,  Le  Roy,  and  Tyrrell.  Now  any  movement  of  dis- 
tinctively academic  parentage  will  be  slow  in  penetrating 
either  the  clergy  or  the  laity  of  the  Roman   Catholic 


AUTHOR  S    PREFACE  XVU 

Church  in  America.  It  is  a  simple  fact  that  among  them 
critical  studies  are  in  a  state  of  infancy.  The  Catholic 
University  at  Washington,  the  best  institution  of  that 
Church  for  furnishing  an  introduction  to  the  methods  of 
criticism,  has  only  a  handful  of  students,  and  the  pro- 
fessors have  repeatedly  deplored  the  lack  of  interest  in 
their  school.  And,  to  come  to  the  most  conspicuous  as 
well  as  to  an  absolutely  decisive  proof  that  the  Church 
in  this  country  is  intellectually  backward,  in  all  the 
voluminous  literature  of  Biblical  criticism,  the  history 
of  dogmas  and  religions,  and  the  philosophy  of  religious 
phenomena,  not  a  single  work  of  competence  and  au- 
thority has  yet  been  produced  by  an  American  Catholic, 
and  the  books  that  reach  even  the  second  class  are  hardly 
more  than  half  a  dozen. 

There  are,  of  course,  mitigating  circumstances.  The 
clergy  here  are  busy  with  the  rough  work  of  building 
up  a  rapidly  growing  Church ;  and — a  fact  not  less  im- 
portant— the  Church  in  this  young  nation  has  no  tra- 
ditions of  scholarship,  no  generations  of  illustrious  think- 
ers and  teachers,  as  Europe  has,  and  in  consequence  it 
lacks  one  of  the  most  powerful  inspirations  to  a  life  of 
study  and  research. 

There  is  another  less  creditable  reason  which  cannot 
be  ignored.  A  few  years  ago  at  a  meeting  of  Catholic 
educators  in  Milwaukee,  two  papers  were  read,  written 
by  priests  who  had  had  long  experience  in  the  direction 
of  seminaries,  which  declared  with  a  frankness  that  quite 
stunned  the  college  officials  present,  especially  the  Jesuits 


XV111  AUTHOR  S    PREFACE 

among  them,  that  the  men  sent  up  to  the  seminaries  by 
Catholic  colleges  are  in  a  condition  of  almost  scandalous 
unfitness  for  prosecuting  the  higher  studies  of  an  ecclesi- 
astical course.  The  indictment — for  it  was  nothing  less — 
stated  that  not  only  were  these  candidates  deficient  in 
positive  erudition,  but  that  they  were  mentally  untrained, 
unable  to  grasp  a  problem,  incapable  of  thinking  for 
themselves,  and  formulating  an  independent  personal 
conclusion  on  a  matter  of  scholarship.  The  complaint 
was  new  only  in  the  daring  method  of  announcing  it. 
It  had  been  made  years  before  in  a  less  public  manner, 
and  is  made  still,  by  the  professors  of  the  Catholic  Uni- 
versity. Obviously  a  condition  thus  criticised  must  change 
before  a  fundamentally  critical  movement  like  Modern- 
ism can  get  a  fair  start. 

Shall  it  ever  be  brought  home  ?  We  think  so ;  and  be- 
lieve it  will  be  in  the  manner  suggested  in  the  keen  re- 
mark of  Father  Tyrrell  quoted  at  the  head  of  this  article. 
The  very  air  and  soil  of  America  are  favorable  to  Mod- 
ernism, as  to  all  other  movements  that  make  for  intelli- 
gence, strength,  sincerity  and  independence.  We  know 
what  the  American  spirit  is  in  the  political  and  social 
order.  Translate  it  into  the  religious  order,  and  you  have 
Modernism  at  its  best  and  purest. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


PREFACE   TO   THE   SECOND   EDITION. 

IN  the  eighteen  months  since  the  first  publication  of 
these  Letters,  Pius  X  has  abundantly  justified — 
though  the  measure  was  already  full — the  complaints  and 
remonstrances  which  they  express.  The  basis  of  these 
complaints  and  remonstrances  is  that  set  of  ideas  and 
ideals,  in  the  name  of  which  every  reformer  of  modern 
times  has  spoken  his  protest  to  the  Vatican — 'Democracy, 
Freedom  of  Intellect,  and  Freedom  of  Conscience. 

Throughout  the  year  and  a  half  just  closed,  the 
Papacy's  attitude  to  these  foundations  of  civilization  has 
been  of  a  hostility  so  undisguised,  a  violence  so  bitter  and 
a  contempt  so  scornful  as  to  cause  havoc  and  consterna- 
tion within  the  church  itself,  and  anxiety  and  outcry 
among  the  governments  of  free  states  in  Europe.  Indeed, 
were  we  to  judge  Roman  Catholicism  by  the  public  enact- 
ments of  its  present  rulers,  it  would  be  difficult  not  to 
regard  it  either  as  the  most  decayed  of  all  anachronisms, 
or  as  the  most  dangerous  of  all  survivals  from  a  past  that 
we  would  fain  think  dead  and  buried. 

That  we  should  not  measure  Catholicism  by  the  papal 
see  is  a  position  that  is  urged  repeatedly  in  this  book. 
But  so  far  as  the  Papacy  is  concerned,  that  it  is  follow- 
ing today  the  same  courses  of  despotism  as  led  to  its  re- 
jection by  the  most  progressive  nations  of  the  world,  and 
that  in  consequence  human  liberty  should  lift  its  voice 
and  free  states  be  on  their  guard  against  it,  the  past 
eighteen  months  of  Vatican  history  give  one  proof  the 

xix 


XX  PREFACE. 

more,  and  add  a  final  assurance  to  a  conviction  that  was 
already   certain. 

First,  as  regards  Democracy:  On  the  twenty-fifth  of 
August,  1910,  appeared  the  Encyclical,  "Notre  charge 
apostolique,"  suppressing  the  Catholic  society,  le  Sillon. 
This  organization,  established  in  France  by  a  zealous 
layman,  had  for  its  purpose  social  reform,  the  spread  of 
fraternal  democracy,  and  the  amicable  uniting  of  all  men 
of  good  will  for  the  discussion  of  economic  problems,  and 
the  duties  of  conscientious  citizenship  with  regard  to 
them.  The  Pope  condemns  it  for  the  following  reasons : 
It  cultivated  too  great  and  too  independent  an  initiative 
among  the  laity ;  it  brought  together  Catholics  and  non- 
Catholics  in  too  friendly  an  intercourse  ;  it  sought  to  break 
down  the  barriers  of  class  distinction ;  and  it  dreamed  of 
a  future  society  nobler  and  kinder  than  we  have  now 
because  based  on  brotherhood  and  philanthropy. 

In  condemnation  of  all  this,  the  Pope  declares  that 
even  in  works  of  social  helpfulness,  Roman  Catholics 
must  be  subservient  to  the  guidance  of  their  bishops ;  that 
it  is  wrong  for  Roman  Catholics  to  mingle  with  non- 
Catholics  in  free  discussion ;  and  that  there  can  be  no 
worthy  civilization  not  wholly  controlled  by  the  Church 
{"on  n'  edifiera  pas  la  societc  si  I'  cglise  n'en  jette  les 
bases  et  ne  dirige  les  travaux").  In  one  word,  the  encyc- 
lical pleads  for  a  theocracy  which  demands  automatism 
from  the  laity,  the  supremacy  of  clericalism,  and  a  deep- 
ening of  those  divisions  among  men  which  have  been 
created  by  the  spirit  of  privilege  and  the  spirit  of  sect. 


PREFACE.  xxi 


As  for  freedom  of  intellect,  there  is  hardly  any  need  to 
go  into  the  details  of  Rome's  recent  violations  of  it.  The 
"committees  of  vigilance"  for  the  smelling  out  of  liberal- 
ism have  been  urged  to  the  vigorous  performance  of  their 
sinister  function ;  professors  have  been  obliged  to  submit 
to  safe  censors  the  text  books  to  be  used  in  their  class- 
rooms ;  repeated  warnings  have  been  addressed  to  bishops 
to  dismiss  any  liberal-minded  teacher  from  their  semina- 
ries, and  to  ordain  to  the  priesthood  no  youth  who  has 
caught  a  surreptitious  glance  at  modern  scholarship ;  and 
under  the  solemn  sanction  of  an  oath,  all  the  Roman 
Catholic  priests  of  the  world  have  been  driven  to  declare 
that  now  and  to  the  end  of  their  lives,  they  do  not  and  will 
not  hold  those  conclusions  respecting  Christian  origins 
and  dogmatic  development  which  the  world's  independent 
students  are  practically  unanimous  in  maintaining. 

Let  us  delay  on  this  oath  a  moment.  According  to  a 
"Motu  proprio"  dated  the  twenty-ninth  of  June,  1910, 
all  candidates  for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Sacred  Scrip- 
ture must  solemnly  swear  that  the  decrees  on  biblical 
matters  issued  by  the  Roman  see,  and  the  decisions  of  the 
Biblical  Commission  already  announced  and  in  future  to 
be  announced  shall  be  their  "supreme  rule  and  guide  and 
that  they  shall  never  depart  from  them  in  teaching,  in 
speech  or  in  writing." 

Whatever,  therefore,  the  evidence  which  the  future 
study  of  these  Doctors  of  Sacred  Scripture  may  discover 
to  them,  they  have  vowed  themselves  to  the  end  of  their 
lives  to  reject  every  liberal  opinion.     They  can  never,  if 


XX11  PREFACE. 

true  to  their  oath,  believe  in  the  non-Mosaic  authorship 
of  the  Pentateuch  or  adopt  the  views  of  the  world's  lead- 
ing scholars  respecting  Genesis,  the  Psalms,  Isaiah,  or  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  Of  course  to  such  men,  science  is  impos- 
sible ;  an  impartial  mind  they  cannot  pretend  to  possess ; 
and  the  abjuration  which  they  have  made  of  the  rights 
of  intelligence  and  personality  is  an  action  essentially  de- 
grading and  immoral.  It  is  possible  without  guilt  to  sell 
our  bodies  into  slavery,  but  our  minds,  never. 

Finally,  under  date  of  September  the  first,  1910,  ap- 
peared the  Papal  rescript  "Sacrorum  Antistitum"  which 
orders  that  the  natural  sciences  shall  be  but  little  studied 
in  seminaries ;  repeats  the  command  for  the  expulsion 
of  all  Catholic  teachers  who  are  in  any  degree  "modo 
quopiam"  infected  with  liberal  ideas,  declaring  that  bish- 
ops cannot  be  too  urgent  and  severe  in  this  species  of 
tyranny — "hoc  in  negotio  xxx  nimia  numquam  erit  anim- 
adversio  et  constantia" :  again  insists  upon  the  exclusion 
from  Seminaries  of  all  liberal  writings  even  if  of  Catholic 
authorship ;  puts  it  upon  the  conscience  of  bishops  to  see 
that  Catholic  booksellers  shall  not  be  vendors  of  liberal 
books;  gives  warning  that  meetings  and  congresses  of 
priests  shall  be  held  but  rarely  if  at  all,  and  when  held 
shall  be  vigilantly  watched ;  and  concludes  with  imposing 
on  the  priests  of  the  world  the  famous  oath  against 
Modernism.  In  this  oath,  priests  swear  to  adhere  with 
all  their  heart  to  every  declaration  and  condemnation  of 
the  Pope's  Syllabus  and  of  his  encyclical  against  Mod- 
ernism ;  to  maintain  that  all  Roman  Catholic  dogmas  in 


PREFACE.  XX111 

the  sense  in  which  they  are  held  today  can  be  reconciled 
with  the  faith  of  the  first  Christians;  and  to  reject  the 
opinion  that  a  Roman  Catholic  student  of  Christian  ori- 
gins or  of  patristic  writings  should  approach  these  studies 
with  a  perfectly  free  and  unbiased  mind,  inasmuch  as, 
on  the  contrary,  such  a  man  must  ever  keep  in  view  the 
preconceived  idea  of  the  truth  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
thesis. 

Concerning  liberty  of  conscience,  the  Pope,  in  these 
latter  days,  has  fairly  startled  the  world  by  the  manner 
in  which  he  has  shown  his  hostility  to  it.  He  vehemently 
protested  against  the  recent  Spanish  law  which  consulted 
common  decency  to  the  extent  of  permitting  non-Catholic 
churches  in  Spain  to  post  notices  of  service,  and  to  bear 
the  customary  outward  signs  of  a  house  of  worship.  And 
through  his  secretary  of  Latin  briefs  he  addressed  to  the 
monk  Lepicier,  author  of  "De  Stabilitate  et  Progressu 
Dogmatis,"  a.  commendatory  letter  which  says :  "By  this 
work  you  have  given  great  gratification  to  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff.  .  .  .  Wherefore,  the  Holy  Father  congratulates 
you  heartily,  and  praying  that  the  book  may  be  of  great 
profit  to  many,  lovingly  bestows  upon  you  the  apostolic 
benediction."  This  book  which,  in  this  twentieth  cen- 
tury has  rejoiced  the  heart  of  Pius  X,  declares  (p.  194) 
that  public  heretics  deserve  not  merely  to  be  excommu- 
nicated, but  to  be  killed  ("sed  etiam  dignos  esse  qui  per 
mortem  e  vivis  auferantur")  ;  that  the  power  to  murder 
heretics  belongs  both  to  the  state  and  the  Church  (p. 
195)  ;  that  the  Church  has  the  power  of  putting  to  death 


XXIV  PREFACE. 

even  repentant  heretics  (p.  199)  ;  that  we  should  not 
shrink  from  uttering  this  teaching  out  of  regard  for  the 
sentiment  of  the  modern  age  (p.  201) ;  that  we  should  re- 
member that  the  church  has  canonized  King  Ferdinand 
III  of  Castile,  and  inserts  in  the  breviary  these  words  in 
praise  of  him :  "He  permitted  no  heretics  to  dwell  in 
his  kingdom,  and  with  his  own  hands  brought  wood  to 
the  stake  for  their  burning"  (p.  202)  ;  that  the  Church 
tolerates  heretics  now  because  it  is  not  prudent  to  kill 
them  (p.  208-209),  and  finally,  that  the  Pope  has  the 
power  to  depose  secular  rulers  who  abandon  Catholicism, 
and  to  absolve  the  subjects  of  such  rulers  from  their 
allegiance  (p.  210). 

With  sentiments  of  this  sort,  and  actions  in  accord 
with  them  so  far  as  is  feasible,  proceeding  from  the 
Roman  Pontiff,  we  cannot  wonder  that  some  of  the  best 
spirits  in  Roman  Catholicism  have  said  farewell  to  the 
church  of  their  birth,  baptism,  and  priestly  consecration, 
and  have  gone  forth  into  intellectual  self-respect  and 
spiritual  liberty,  and  into  a  free  if  lonely  faith  which  will 
not  oblige  them  to  believe  that  the  honest  exercise  of 

human  reason  is  a  sin,  and  butchery  a  virtue 

In  the  past  year  and  a  half,  Salvatore  Minocchi,  a  priest 
distinguished  both  for  biblical  scholarship  and  for  many 
years  of  zealous  work  in  promoting  higher  studies  among 
the  Roman  Catholics  of  Italy,  has  left  the  Church.  So 
has  Pere  Rose,  the  Dominican  professor  of  Scripture  at 
the  University  of  Freiburg.  So  has  the  Abbe  Dabry 
who  for  twenty  years  was  perhaps  the  foremost  leader 


PREFACE.  XXV 

of  social  democracy  among  the  clergy  of  France.  And 
through  their  refusal  to  take  the  anti-modernist  oath,  a 
number  of  priests  in  Europe  and  some  in  the  United 
States  have  uttered  their  valedictory  to  Rome.  Among 
the  best  known  of  these  are  Dr.  Ferdinand  Birkner, 
professor  extraordinary  at  the  university  of  Munich  and 
dean  of  the  court  church  of  St.  Michael ;  Professor  Held- 
wein,  chaplain  of  the  Bavarian  court ;  Professors  Knoep- 
fler,  Gietl,  Walter,  Goettberg,  and  Popp;  the  brothers 
Wieland,  one  a  rector  in  the  diocese  of  Augsburg,  the 
other  vice-rector  of  the  seminary  of  Dillingen ;  the  Fran- 
ciscan Pere  Hock  of  Toelz  in  Bavaria ;  and  Dr.  Scherer, 
professor  at  the  university  of  Vienna. 

And  how  strong  the  spirit  of  revolt  is  in  a  host  of 
priests  who  still  remain  in  Roman  Catholicism,  we  may 
see  in  the  letter  of  protest  against  the  anti-modernist 
oath  sent  to  every  bishop  in  France  by  the  liberal  priests 
of  that  country,  and  in  the  congratulatory  address  pre- 
sented to  Signor  Nathan,  the  mayor  of  Rome,  by  the 
modernists  of  Italy  after  his  anti-clerical  speech  of  the 
20th  of  September,  1910.  This  latter  extraordinary 
document  contains  such  sentiments  as  these :  "The  Vati- 
can has  sought  to  protest  in  the  name  of  the  Church, 
against  your  statements.  .  .  .  The  Vatican,  which  has 
stifled  the  progress  of  Christianity,  has  no  right  to  speak 
in  the  name  of  the  Church  because  the  best  part  of  the 
Church  in  Italy  has  no  wish  to  co-operate  in  the  papal 
programme  which  is  in  open  conflict  with  national  unity, 
with  the  progress  of  thought,  and  with  the  freedom  of 


XXVI  PREFACE. 

religious  life.  ...  In  the  name  of  all  those  who  aspire 
for  truth  in  liberty,  of  all  who  would  see  in  Christianity 
a  new  life,  and  not  an  outgrown  intellectual  system,  in 
the  name  of  all  who  are  confined  in  the  captivity  of 
ecclesiasticism,  we  take  pleasure  in  expressing  to  you  our 
boundless  gratitude  and  our  entire  sympathy." 

The  crisis  in  Roman  Catholicism  is  as  clear  as  the  sun 
at  noon.  It  is  a  crisis  produced  by  the  Papacy's  hostility, 
not  only  to  modernism  but  to  modernity.  Until  the  Roman 
See  shall  cease  to  teach  that  it  possesses  the  right  to  shed 
the  blood  of  heretics ;  that  our  democratic  age  should 
thrust  itself  into  the  shackles  of  political  union  with  the 
Italian  Curia;  and  that  science  and  scholarship  shall  take 
no  forward  step  not  permitted  them  by  the  hoary  reac- 
tionism  of  Vatican  theology,  the  Church  will  travel  fast 
toward  the  dissolution  of  which  there  have  been  so  many 
appalling  symptoms  since  the  tiara  was  placed  upon  the 
head  of  Pius  X.  Until  then  Roman  Catholicism  will  not 
only  fail  to  gain  accessions  among  men  of  modern  spirit, 
but  will  continue  to  see  many  of  her  own  sons,  and  those 
the  choicest,  deserting  her  for  a  simplicity,  sincerity  and 
liberty  which  departed  from  the  halls  of  the  Vatican  when 
temporal  powers,  Italian  monopoly,  and  the  temper  of 
absolutism  and  persecution  came  in.  Until  then,  too, 
there  will  be  need  for  such  books  as  this,  which,  could 
Rome  but  see  it,  point  the  way  to  renewal,  vitality,  and 
victory. 

The  Author. 

October,  1911. 


FART   I— LETTERS 


The  Need  for  These  Letters 

Your  Holiness: 

It  has  become  unfortunately  very  rare,  it  is  considered 
indeed  to  be  not  only  improper  but  irreligious,  for  a  sim- 
ple Christian  to  offer  counsel  or  remonstrance  to  his  eccle- 
siastical superiors.  However  tyrannical  and  unchristian 
the  acts  of  Pope  or  prelate  may  be,  however  cruel  the 
suffering  he  may  inflict,  the  common  faithful  must  raise 
no  voice  of  protest.  When  recently  the  most  illustrious 
laymen  of  France,  among  whom  were  such  men  as  Bru- 
netiere,  Thureau-Dangin,  de  Vogue  and  d'Haussonville, 
earnestly  recommended  that  your  Holiness  give  a  loyal 
trial  to  the  Briand  separation-law,  and  pointed  out  how 
uncalled  for  and  disastrous  would  be  the  course  which  it 
pleased  you  to  adopt,  they  were  roundly  scored  for  the 
impertinent  presumption  of  giving  advice  to  a  Pope. 
When  also  the  loyal  Catholics  of  Italy,  wearied  unto  very 
sickness  with  the  Papacy's  puerile  attitude  toward  the 
Italian  government,  founded  their  League  of  National 
Democracy  for  the  promoting  both  of  patriotism  to  their 
country  and  devotion  to  their  church,  they  were  con- 
demned and  silenced,  and  their  noble  project  put  under 
ban  of  anathema.    Even  should  it  be  that  a  bishop  himself 

3 


4  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

speak  out  in  conscientious  opposition,  though  in  the  most 
respectful  terms,  to  this  or  that  Papal  policy,  he  is  con- 
sidered by  the  regnant  autocracy  at  Rome  as  having  trans- 
gressed the  limits  of  the  servitude  which  the  Curia  has 
imposed  upon  mankind.  Witness  the  late  bishop  of  La 
Rochelle,  stricken  in  his  very  death-hour  by  Roman  cen- 
sure, because  of  his  solicitude  to  mitigate  the  severity  of 
your  Holiness's  condemnation  of  the  Separation  law. 
Witness  certain  of  our  own  American  bishops  who  in- 
formed Leo  XIII  ten  years  ago  that  his  fancied  American- 
ism did  not  exist  here,  and  thereby  came  under  the  high 
displeasure  of  the  Roman  camarilla.  Witness  the  three 
German  bishops  who  only  yesterday,  as  it  were,  supported 
the  project  of  erecting  a  monument  to  the  pure-minded 
Christian  scholar,  Hermann  Schell,  and  received  from 
your  Holiness  summary  disapproval  and  crushing  rebuke. 
Schell's  stainless  name  is  hated  at  the  Vatican ;  therefore 
no  Catholic  must  venerate  it.  When  the  Pope  speaks  let 
every  tongue  be  still ;  when  the  Pope  acts  let  every  head 
be  bowed.  If  we  feel  righteous  indignation  at  Roman 
folly,  we  must  not  utter  it.  Should  even  our  very  con- 
science revolt,  we  must  repress  it.  Blind,  stupid,  slavish 
submission — this  alone  is  left  us. 

So  strongly  is  Roman  coercion  riveted  upon  prelates, 
priests  and  people,  that  the  old  Catholic  independence  is 
lost,  the  old  episcopal  dignity  sunk  to  serfdom.  Men  of 
candor  and  strong  personality,  men  who  bend  the  knee 
to  God  alone  and  follow  not  the  tricks  of  fawning — can 
such  men  obtain  bishoprics  to-day?    No,  except  by  acci- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  5 

dent,  and  a  rare  accident.  Weakness,  the  inevitable  con- 
sequence of  subservience,  is  the  universal  result.  Weak 
men  are  appointed  bishops;  poor,  docile,  unintellectual 
instruments  who  see  no  disgrace  in  being  liveried  lackeys 
of  Italian  congregations,  deem  it  not  dishonorable  to  pro- 
fess in  their  official  documents  that  they  owe  their  suc- 
cessorship  to  the  apostles  "to  the  mercy  of  the  Apostolic 
See" — Sanctae  sedis  misericordia — and  conceive  it  to  be 
the  highest  purpose  of  episcopal  statesmanship  to  make 
this  year's  Peter's  Pence  more  opulent  than  the  last. 

It  was  not  always  so.  Catholicism  and  Romanism  were 
not  always  one ;  and  if  to-day  we  must  hold  our  peace 
whether  Rome  does  well  or  ill,  time  was  when  the  spirit 
of  manhood  could  coexist  with  Holy  Orders,  and  not 
even  the  might  of  the  Sovereign  Pontificate  daied  to  assail 
it  with  impunity.  To  one  of  your  predecessors  an  Irish 
monk,  Columbanus,  wrote  the  splendid  defiance,  Si  tollis 
libertatcm,  tollis  et  dignitatem;  "if  you  destroy  liberty, 
you  destroy  honor".  To  Pope  Eugenius,  St.  Bernard, 
another  monk,  dared  to  send  a  sturdy  warning  against  the 
corruption  surrounding  the  Roman  See.  Disgusted  with 
the  profane  pomp  displayed  by  the  successors  of  a 
Galilean  fisherman,  the  austere  Cistercian  reminded  the 
head  of  Western  Christendom :  "In  his  saccessisti,  non 
Petro  sed  Constantino" :  "in  this  you  make  yourself  the 
successor  not  of  Peter,  but  of  Constantine".  (De  Consid. 
Bk.  iV-c.  3). 

The  government  of  the  Church,  says  Gregory  i,  in 
words  which  we  of  this  time  can  scarcely  believe  to  be 


6  LETTERS  TO   HIS  HOLINESS 

the  words  of  a  Pope,  ought  never  to  crush  the  right  of 
honorable  protest.  "Necesse  est  ut  cura  regiminis  tanta 
moderaminis  arte  temperetur,  quatenus  subditorum  mens, 
cum  quaedam  recte  sentire  potuerit,  sic  in  vocis  libertatem 
prodeat,  ut  tamen  libertas  in  superbiam  non  erumpat." 
(De  Cura  Past.  II-8.)  So  Hilary  of  Poitiers  sturdily  con- 
demned Pope  Liberius ;  so  Catherine  of  Sienna  poured  an 
invective  of  fire  upon  the  sordid  souls  of  the  Curialists  of 
her  time ;  so  Strossmayer  told  the  Vatican  Council  that 
the  Italianizing  of  the  world  must  cease  if  Catholicity  is 
to  prosper ;  so,  to  conclude  with  the  first  and  greatest  of 
such  instances,  Paul  withstood  Peter  for  betraying  the 
spirit  and  the  cause  of  Christ. 

Yes,  the  sorrowful  history  of  Roman  tyranny  has  been 
now  and  then  illuminated  by  spokesmen  of  freedom.  Sim- 
ple priests  and  humble  monks  and  weak  women  have 
dared  to  speak  their  minds  to  the  wearers  of  the  triple 
crown ;  and  at  intervals  the  voice  of  candor  has  flung  its 
challenge  into  halls  that  were  better  acquainted  with  the 
accents  of  subservience,  falsehood,  and  intrigue.  In  the 
spirit  of  these  apostles  of  truth-telling,  the  writer  of  these 
letters  ventures,  your  Holiness,  to  commit  the  impropriety 
of  addressing  you.  Who  I  am  is  of  the  smallest  conse- 
quence. Suffice  it  to  say  that  I  am  an  American,  pene- 
trated to  the  heart  with  the  love  and  the  traditions  of  my 
country ;  that  as  an  American  I  cannot  tolerate  bondage, 
and  must  detest  whatever  man  or  institution  endeavors  to 
check  the  ever-growing,  ever-rising  personality  of  man 
in  its  aspirations  for  larger  freedom  and  more  perfect 


LETTERS   TO    HIS   HOLINESS  7 

truth ;  that  furthermore,  I  have  been  drilled  and  disci- 
plined in  the  Roman  system  from  my  youth ;  that  for 
years  I  could  see  no  distinction  between  Romanism  and 
Catholicism ;  but  that  now  after  long  study  and  reflec- 
tion, in  the  course  of  which  I  have  tried  to  follow  the 
highest  ideal  of  Truth  which  God  has  permitted  me 
to  see,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  a  Papal  power 
capable  in  this  twentieth  century  of  such  infamies  as 
the  Syllabus  of  Pius  IX  and  your  own  campaign  against 
modernism,  is  irreconcilable  with  civilization  and  is  de- 
structive of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 

II 

The   Purpose   of    These   Letters 

Your  Holiness: 

In  writing  these  letters  I  am  deluded  by  no  false  hope, 
no  vain  expectation.  Had  I  the  genius  of  Pascal,  I  should 
no  more  hope  to  influence  the  traditional  spirit  of  the 
Roman  See  than  that  illustrious  man  in  his  day  hoped 
to  destroy  Jesuitism.  It  goes  without  saying,  that  I  wish 
some  such  words  as  these  of  mine  might  receive  impartial 
consideration  in  the  court  over  which  you  preside.  Noth- 
ing is  dearer  to  my  heart  than  that  the  best  traditions  of 
Catholicity — its  splendid  sanctity,  its  divine  fecundity  of 
heroism,  its  priceless  mysticism,  should  gain  access  to  the 
souls  of  modern  men,  and  sanctify  and  save  them.  Yes, 
Holy  Father,  I  devoutly  wish,  that  you  might  bear  with 
me  even  when,  overcome  by  feeling,  I  speak  perhaps  too 


8  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

harshly  of  the  history  of  your  exalted  office.  Would  that 
laying  every  prejudice  aside  you  might  say :  "Why  is 
the  modern  world  so  hostile  to  Catholicism?  Why  have 
the  most  enlightened  nations  of  history  rejected  it  and 
set  themselves  against  it?  What  is  the  reason? 
Has  it  any  justification?  Can  I  do  anything  to 
correct  mistakes  and  remove  antipathies  which  are 
ruinous  to  the  cause  of  Christ  ?  I  will  listen  to 
what  sincere  men  would  say  to  me.  Their  speech  may 
be  at  times  intemperate,  but  it  is  easy  to  overlook  that  if 
their  intention  be  upright,  and  their  remonstrance  true. 
These  modernist  reformers,  so  hateful  to  the  Curia,  are 
very  often  of  high  intelligence  and  unquestioned  probity, 
and  of  a  truth  their  number  is  astonishingly  increasing. 
They  are  neither  fools  nor  criminals ;  they  have  a  mes- 
sage ;  they  wish  to  serve  religion.  Let  me  see — me  who 
am  beholden  to  Jesus  Christ,  how  I  discharge  my  shep- 
herdship,  if  there  be  not  in  these  loud  cries  some  appeal 
to  my  conscience,  some  summons  to  a  duty  not  yet  ful- 
filled. May  I  not  have  to  incur  in  my  judgment-hour 
the  reproach  uttered  by  holy  Bernard  to  one  who  wore 
my  tiara :  Quousque  murmur  unwersae  terrae,  aut  dis- 
simulas  aut  non  avertis!  'How  long  have  you  been  deaf 
to  the  outcry  of  the  whole  world !'  " 

Alas !  there  is  no  ground  to  hope  that  either  Pope  or 
bishop  will  thus  heed  the  reformer's  cry.  Every  earnest 
spirit  that  in  our  time  has  attacked  consecrated  iniquity 
or  ecclesiastical  folly  has  been  bludgeoned.  Look  at  the 
men  who  have  spoken  for  pure  religion  and  truth  against 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  O, 

Roman  oppression :  Gratry,  Montefeltro,  Gioberti,  Mon- 
talembert,  Lamennais,  Dollinger,  Schell,  Murri,  Tyrrell, 
— why  extend  the  list  ? — noble  names,  high-minded  men  of 
God,  yet  every  one  of  them  saw  his  dream  dissolve,  and 
died,  or  will  die,  forlorn,  defeated,  hopeless. 

No,  I  have  no  expectation  of  succeeding  where  these 
great  souls  have  failed.  The  walls  of  Jericho  collapse 
no  longer  at  the  trumpet  call  of  consecrated  men.  Save 
that  the  Papacy  has  been  deprived  of  the  power  to  shed 
blood,  its  grip  upon  its  remaining  adherents  was  hardly 
ever  more  suffocating  than  in  this  present  day.  Its  au- 
tocracy has  still  a  long  history  before  it,  and  hundreds 
yet  unborn  are  destined  to  be  added  to  the  lengthy  list 
of  its  victims.  But  I  do  hope  in  these  letters  to  your 
Holiness,  to  help  the  formation,  especially  among  Ameri- 
can Catholics,  of  a  public  opinion,  which  will  send  across 
the  Atlantic  some  ringing  word,  some  typically  American 
defiance,  against  the  non-representative  cabal  whose  onlv 
courtesy  to  us  has  been  the  taking  of  our  lavish  largesses 
of  money.  I  do  hope  to  open  the  eyes  of  some  of  our 
fair-minded  priests  to  the  appalling  falsifications  of  their 
poor  pitiable  seminary  education,  and  to  the  mental  and 
spiritual  bondage  in  which,  to  the  grievous  injury  of 
character  and  manhood,  they  are  enslaved.  I  do  hope 
to  express  in  the  name  of  America,  which  has  thus  far 
been  silent,  a  protest  against  your  frenzied  crusade  upon 
the  rights  of  human  intelligence.  I  do  hope  to  tell  you 
frankly  why  the  Church  is  losing  ground  every  day 
among  civilized  and  enlightened  peoples,  and  to  put  it 


10  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

before  your  conscience  whether  you,  who  alone  can  do 
it,  will  relieve  the  momentous  situation,  will  turn  your 
back  upon  traditions  whose  history  reeks  with  blood  and 
is  foul  with  corruption,  and  take  as  your  simple  standard: 
Not  the  Curia,  but  Christ ! 

Ill 

The  Purpose  of  These  Letters  (Continued) 

Your  Holiness: 

It  is  my  purpose  to  tell  you  why  the  modern  world 
rejects  and  distrusts  Roman  Catholicism.  Until  we  know 
the  answer  to  that  question  Catholics  are  in  a  fool's  para- 
dise, their  apologetics  are  inept,  their  dreams  of  con- 
versions only  hallucinations,  their  wider  religious  activi- 
ties almost  ridiculous.  I  am  aware  that  in  the  marvelous 
mentality  of  the  strict  Roman  theologian,  the  question  is 
summarily  answered.  The  most  highly  enlightened  na- 
tions of  the  world  have  cast  off  Roman  Catholicism  be- 
cause they  are  under  the  power  of  Satan,  and  of  his 
chief  instruments,  the  Free-Masons.  Voila!  the  problem 
is  solved.  This  solution  I  have  no  intention  of  refuting. 
It  would  degrade  the  intellect  of  a  grown  man  to  discuss 
it.  Merely  let  me  say,  Your  Holiness,  that  the  educated 
minds  of  Germany,  France,  England,  and  the  United 
States,  have  not  set  the  Father  of  Falsehood  upon  the 
altar  of  the  God  of  Truth ;  and  that  whenever  the  Cath- 
olic religion  shall  appear  before  them  as  a  purely  spiritual 
society,  existing  for  no  other  purpose  whatsoever  than 
to  reproduce  the  Christ-life  upon  earth,  they  will  turn  to 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  II 

her  with  overflowing  hearts,  will  merge  all  their  differ- 
ences in  a  world-wide  spiritual  brotherhood,  and  will  rec- 
ognize with  new  ardor  the  supreme  leadership  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

But  now,  and  for  imperative  reasons,  as  I  soon  shall 
point  out,  they  do  not  regard  Roman  Catholicism  as  a 
purely  religious  society.  They  consider  it,  on  its  official, 
on  its  Roman  side,  a  mischievous  political  institution  that 
has  done  its  best  to  wreck  civilization  in  the  past,  and  is 
still  a  deadly  menace  to  the  civilization  of  to-day  and  of 
the  future.  They  can  see  nothing  resembling  Christ  in 
the  Roman  Curia,  and  in  the  Papacy  as  it  functions  now. 
They  dread  it ;  they  abhor  it.  Until  it  radically  changes, 
until  it  candidly  gives  the  lie  to  its  past  history,  they  will 
have  no  dealings  and  no  patience  with  it.  And  the  solemn 
responsibility  that  rests  upon  you,  and  upon  those  who 
will  come  after  you,  is  whether  you  will  save  the  souls 
of  the  modern  world,  or  prefer  to  save  the  worthless 
forms  of  a  dead  and  rotting  theocracy. 

IV 
What  Is  Religion 

Your  Holiness: 

Before  coming  to  the  reasons  on  which  the  modern 
world  bases  its  rejection  of  Roman  Catholicism,  let  us 
go  back  to  certain  primary  principles  of  religious  life 
and  thought.  Bear  with  me  while  I  touch  upon  a  defini- 
tion or  two  which  a  penny  catechism  furnishes  indeed, 
but  in  hardly  adequate  terms.     What,  after  all,  is  the 


12  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

Christian  religion?  What  is  the  Church  of  Christ?  Re- 
ligion is  the  name  for  our  God-obeying,  Godward-grow- 
ing  life.  Religion  means  union  with  Deity,  character- 
culture  in  the  pursuit  of  infinite  Truth,  Justice  and  Love. 
The  Christian  religion  signifies  the  type  and  method  of 
these  spiritual  relationships  as  shown  forth  and  taught 
by  Christ.  Christianity  is  God-worship  in  the  Christ- 
manner  ;  soul-cultivation  after  the  Christ-model.  In  a 
word,  the  aim  of  Christianity  is  to  reproduce  and  perpet- 
uate the  Christ-life.  A  Christian  Church  is  a  brotherhood 
of  Christian  disciples ;  and  that  Church  will  be  the  best 
and  truest  church  which  teaches  in  the  most  pure  and 
perfect  way  the  Christ-life,  the  Christ-character.  It  seems 
too  obvious  to  need  remarking,  but  there  is,  as  we  shall 
see,  abundant  reason  to  remark,  that  Christianity,  or  the 
Christ-ideal,  can  never  stand  in  opposition  to  morality,  to 
the  ideas  of  goodness,  charity,  mercy  and  truth  which  our 
Creator  has  placed  within  our  spirit.  Christianity  is 
rather  to  purify  and  exalt  these  ideals.  If  they  are  at- 
tacked, it  cannot  be  Christ  that  attacks  them ;  and  if  it  be 
that  someone  does  attack  them  in  Christ's  name,  we  may 
straightway  know  that  such  a  one  is  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously misrepresenting  the  Lord  in  whom  all  our  ideals 
shine  forth  divinely,  and  is  an  apostate  from  the  perfect 
standard  which  he  has  left  us. 

Furthermore  religion  is  not  the  sole  activity  of  man. 
In  all  other  departments  of  the  higher  life,  too,  we  must 
grow ;  we  must  be  forever  dropping  the  less  to  reach  forth 
for  the  greater.     Growth  in  Truth  and  in  Liberty  is  the 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  13 

law  of  the  beneficent  Providence  which  has  made  us  men. 
And  just  as  only  a  falsification  and  travesty  of  Chris- 
tianity can  contradict  morality,  so  only  a  falsification  and 
travesty  of  Christianity  can  contradict  these  other  species 
of  human  progress.  A  true  Christian  Church  therefore 
must  perpetuate  the  Christ-ideal  while  never  obstructing 
the  higher  evolution  of  mankind,  which  is  as  much  a  part 
of  God's  Providence  as  Christianity  itself.  Accordingly, 
the  Church  must  be  one,  inasmuch  as  the  ideal  life  which 
it  is  its  raison  d'etre  to  inculcate,  is  one ;  it  must  be  holy, 
because  its  purpose  is  the  sacredest  possible  to  man ;  and 
it  must  be  Catholic ;  that  is  to  say,  it  must  further  all 
forms  of  human  development  by  sanctifying  the  root  and 
origin  of  all.  If  any  Church — let  us  say  it  once  more — ■ 
does  not  fulfill  this  mission,  if  it  officially  degrades  moral- 
ity, and  obstructs  the  pathway  of  the  higher  human  evolu- 
tion, to  that  extent  it  is  faithless  to  the  Christ-type,  it 
is  renegade  to  the  Christ-teacher,  it  is  a  falsehood  and  an 
imposition ;  and  instead  of  forming  men  to  the  Gospel 
standard,  it  will  turn  many  of  them  away  in  disgust  from 
any  religion  whatsoever.    Can  anything  be  plainer? 

I  have  been  using  the  terms  Christ-spirit,  Christ-life, 
Christ-ideal.  I  trust  there  is  no  need  for  detailed  defini- 
tions here.  Surely  we  know  who  and  what  was  Jesus. 
He  is  the  crown  and  glory  of  human  character.  Love  of 
truth,  that  made  Him  defy  a  corrupt  hierarchy ;  consecra- 
tion to  duty,  that  led  Him  to  the  cross ;  gentleness,  that 
crowns  him  with  winning  loveliness  beyond  any  other  of 
the  sons  of  men ;  mercy,  that  has  let  us  see  that  no  peni- 


14  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

tent  or  prodigal  need  despair ;  in  these,  how  divinely  great 
and  glorious  He  is !  How  He  rises  above  His  nation  by 
conceiving  the  Kingdom  as  not  for  the  Jews  alone,  but 
for  the  world !  How  He  scorns  the  caste-pride  of 
the  Pharisees  by  sitting  down  to  eat  with  sinners !  How 
He  shatters  the  antipathies  of  narrow  orthodoxy  by  put- 
ting forth  as  models  the  heretic  leper  who  returned  to 
give  thanks,  and  the  heretic  philanthropist  on  the  road 
to  Jericho,  who  understood  God  better  than  Levite  or 
priest !  It  were  sacrilege  to  think  of  Him  as  brutal ;  as 
striking  with  cruel  fist  any  face  upturned  to  God ;  as 
grinding  any  of  the  little  ones  He  loved  beneath  the  iron 
heel  of  tyranny.  O  Sovereign  Pontiff,  the  standard  of 
men  and  institutions  is  not  Canon  Law,  but  He,  the  Mas- 
ter ;  not  ancient  tradition,  but  the  everlasting  God  as  shin- 
ing out  upon  us  in  the  perfect  Christ! 

V 

The   Attitude   of   the   Modern    World    Toward   Official 

Catholicism 

Your  Holiness: 

In  due  time  I  shall  bring  the  subject-matter  of  the  pre- 
ceding letter  to  bear  upon  Papal  history.  Just  now  let  me 
recall  to  you  in  detail  some  of  the  chief  reasons  for  the 
modern  world's  refusal  to  embrace  Roman  Catholicism. 
You  do  not  know  them,  I  dare  say ;  few  in  the  Church 
over  which  you  hold  sovereign  dominion  appreciate  them 
in  any  intelligent  degree.     What  with  all  this  fury  over 


LETTERS  TO   HIS  HOLINESS  15 

modernism,  what  with  the  puerile  orthodox  shuddering  at 
Satan  and  Free-Masonry  as  the  cause  of  the  Church's 
troubles,  the  real  reasons  are  persistently  and  foolishly 
ignored.  Now  then,  in  a  candid  and  downright  fashion, 
let  us  see  what  they  are. 

The  enlightened  nations  of  to-day,  Holy  Father,  are 
decisively  in  opposition  to  Roman  Catholicism,  largely, 
yes,  primarily,  because  as  has  been  said,  they  look  upon 
it  as  the  irreconcilable  enemy  of  progress  and  civilization. 
The  sanctity  which  appears  so  often  and  so  brilliantly 
in  the  Church,  they  acknowledge  and  revere.  The  intelli- 
gent American  non-Catholic  speaks  as  affectionately  as 
would  one  of  the  Catholic  household,  of  the  Sisters  who 
sacrifice  their  lives  for  the  orphans,  the  aged,  and  the 
sick.  He  bows  his  head  in  veneration  at  heroic  names 
like  that  of  Damien.  His  Catholic  neighbors  he  esteems 
according  to  their  worth.  Catholic  charities  he  is  liberal 
in  helping  to  support.  But  over  and  beyond  the  diviner 
side  of  Catholicism  he  sees  the  sinister  forms,  he  reads 
the  foul  history  of  Papacy  and  Curia.  These  he  abhors. 
With  these  as  they  have  been  and  still  are,  he  cannot, 
while  the  world  lasts,  be  reconciled.  He  regards  the 
political  Papacy  and  the  autocracy  of  the  Curia  as  a 
menace  to  human  liberty,  as  destructive  of  enlightenment 
and  subversive  of  pure  religion.  It  is  as  impossible  to  con- 
vert Germany,  England  and  America  to  the  Papacy,  as 
to  Mohammedanism.  The  triumph  of  Islam  itself  in  their 
judgment  would  be  no  more  disastrous  to  mankind  than 
the  re-establishment  of  the  sovereignty  of  medieval  Rome. 


l6  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

I  am  speaking  plainly,  but  with  literal  truthfulness. 
The  Papacy  and  the  Curia  were  the  chief  reasons  for 
the  revolt  of  the  sixteenth  century;  the  Papacy  and  the 
Curia  are  the  chief  reasons  why  that  revolt  is  not  abated 
in  the  twentieth.  Now,  then,  why  is  there  such  an  atti- 
tude toward  Papal  Rome?  Is  it  not  wholly  unjust?  Do 
not  our  pious  histories  inform  us  that  the  Papacy  has  been 
the  savior  of  civilization  ?  that  the  sovereign  See  of  Cath- 
olic Christendom  is  a  "Holy"  See?  that  there  the  world's 
zeal  and  learning  are  gloriously  concentrated?  Is  it  not 
pure  bigotry,  this  hostility  to  the  Roman  Pontificate? 

No,  it  is  not  pure  bigotry.  Neither  is  it  in  modernism, 
nor  in  the  classic  sources,  Satan  and  Masonry,  that  we 
must  find  the  cause  of  the  ineradicable  aversion  of  the 
modern  world  for  the  See  of  Rome.  That  cause  lies  in 
the  notorious  history  of  that  See  itself.  It  has  been 
judged  by  its  fruits,  and  by  its  fruits  forever  and  irrevoc- 
ably condemned.     Let  us  see. 

Nations,  like  invididuals,  cherish  as  most  precious  the 
possessions  that  have  cost  them  most.  To-day,  at  the  basis 
of  every  free  state  are  certain  principles  of  liberty  which 
have  been  gained  only  after  centuries  of  heroic  struggle 
and  a  dreadful  expenditure  of  heroic  blood.  These  princi- 
ples of  liberty  are  dearer  to  every  freeman  than  his  life. 
Sooner  will  a  free  country  consent  to  give  up  the  last  of 
its  sons  to  the  sword  and  the  last  of  its  homes  to  the 
torch,  than  surrender  the  emancipating  ideas  which  the 
slow  Providence  that  overrules  history  has  bestowed  upon 
us.    Backward  the  march  of  man  can  never  go.    Faithless 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  IJ 

to  the  heritage  of  freedom  mankind  can  never  be  unless 
mankind  goes  mad.  Barbarism  shall  never  overreach  civ- 
ilization ;  Death  shall  never  usurp  the  seat  of  Life. 

The  greatest  of  these  principles  of  liberty  is  freedom 
of  conscience.  The  relations  of  each  man's  soul  with  his 
Creator  are  a  matter  solely  for  each  man's  conscience, 
subject  to  nothing  else  than  the  fundamental  morality  and 
the  social  peace  which  must  govern  all  human  activities. 
Freedom  of  conscience  is  the  highest  of  all  freedom ;  it  is 
the  life-principle  of  every  people  that  deserves  to  be  called 
civilized.  Precious  as  it  is,  fundamental  as  it  is,  it  has 
been  most  painfully  won.  Through  blood,  and  flames,  and 
exile,  and  all  terror,  the  right  to  worship  Deity  as  con- 
science dictates  has  fought  its  way.  To-day  we  blush  for 
shame  that  it  should  ever  have  been  violated.  To-day  we 
look  back  as  to  the  highest  type  of  heroism  upon  the  exile 
banned  by  tyranny,  because  he  would  not  lie ;  to  the 
martyr  dying  at  the  stake  because  he  would  not  bend  the 
knee  to  what  he  believed  to  be  falsehood  and  superstition. 

Sovereign  Pontiff,  do  you  ask  why  the  Papacy  is  de- 
spised and  rejected?  It  is,  first  of  all,  because  this  price- 
less right  of  conscience  is  denied  as  impious  falsehood  by 
your  Roman  See ;  it  is  because  the  Papacy's  history  with 
regard  to  it  is  perhaps  the  Vilest  infamy  recorded  in  the 
annals  of  the  world. 


l8  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

VI 

The  Papacy   and  Freedom   of   Conscience 

Your  Holiness: 

Says  the  fourth  ecumenical  Lateran  council,  after  having 
pronounced  anathema  upon  heretics  :  "We  prohibit  under 
pain  of  anathema,  that  any  one  retain  or  protect  them  in 
his  house  or  territory,  or  have  any  business  dealings  with 
them.  And  if  any  one  of  them  die  in  his  sin,  no  prayers 
shall  be  offered  for  him,  and  Christian  burial  shall  be 
denied  him".  Pope  Innocent  III,  in  the  same  Council, 
legislates  as  follows :  "Let  secular  rulers  be  warned,  and 
if  necessary  compelled  by  ecclesiastical  censures,  to  take 
a  public  oath  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  exterminate  from 
their  territory  all  manner  of  heretics — (universos  haere- 
ticos  exterminarc) — who  shall  have  been  so  designated 
by  the  Church.  This  oath  every  man  shall  be  obliged  to 
take  who  enters  upon  any  office  of  civil  power,  whether 
the  office  be  for  life  or  for  a  limited  time.  And  if  a  secu- 
lar ruler,  after  due  warning  by  the  Church,  neglects  to 
purge  his  territory  from  the  filth  of  heresy  (ab  haeretica 
foeditate),  let  him  be  excommunicated  by  the  metropolitan 
archbishop  and  the  bishops  of  the  Province.  If  thereafter 
he  fails  to  come  to  a  better  mind,  let  this  within  the  space 
of  one  year  be  told  to  the  Pope,  to  the  end  that  the  Su- 
preme Pontiff  may  declare  that  ruler's  subjects  absolved 
from  their  allegiance,  and  his  territory  open  to  seizure  by 
Catholics,  who  shall  possess  it  absolutely  (absque  ulla 
contradictione)  once  they  have  destroyed  the  heresy  there 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  19 

existing,  and  established  it  in  purity  of  doctrine.  This, 
however,  must  not  interfere  with  the  rights  of  the  chief 
sovereign,  provided  he  has  placed  no  obstacle  to  the  execu- 
tion of  our  law. 

"Catholics  who  engage  in  a  crusade  for  the  extermina- 
tion of  heretics  (ad  hacreticorum  extet -minium),  shall  be 
granted  that  indulgence  and  that  holy  privilege  which  are 
bestowed  upon  Crusaders  to  the  Holy  Land. 

"Heretics,  along  with  those  that  shelter,  defend  and 
support  them,  we  declare  to  be  excommunicated.  As  soon 
as  any  one  of  such — this  is  our  strict  decree  (Urmiter 
statuentes) — becomes  thus  publicly  excommunicated,  the 
penalty  upon  him,  if  within  a  year  he  neglect  to  repair  his 
fault,  is  this:  He  is  under  infamy  (infamis)  ;  he  cannot 
fill  public  office,  or  share  in  choosing  public  officials ;  he 
is  not  allowed  to  give  testimony  in  a  court  of  justice ; 
he  is  incapable  of  making  a  will  bequeathing  property,  or 
of  coming  into  possession  of  a  bequest  to  himself ;  he  can- 
not exact  information  upon  any  matter  from  others,  but 
he  must  give  information  when  asked  by  others.  If  he  is 
a  judge,  his  sentence  is  null,  and  no  cases  should  be 
brought  before  him  for  trial.  If  he  is  a  lawyer,  no  one  is 
permitted  to  hire  him  (ejus  patrocinium  nullatenus  admit- 
tatur).  If  he  is  a  notary,  the  public  documents  that  he 
draws  up  are  invalid,  being  vitiated  in  their  source. 
Priests  must  refuse  the  sacraments  to  such  pestilential 
wretches  (pestilentibus),  deny  them  Christian  burial,  and 
scorn  to  take  their  alms  and  offerings.  Should  any  priest 
act  to  the  contrary,  he  is  to  be  deprived  of  his  office,  and 


20  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

never  restored  to  it  without  a  special  indult  of  the  Apos- 
tolic See. 

"We  will,  decree,  and  strictly  command,  that  in  the  exe- 
cution of  these  laws,  bishops  be  diligent  and  vigilant.  If 
they  are  not  so,  canonical  penalties  await  them.  Should 
any  bishop  be  negligent  or  lax  in  purging  his  diocese  of 
the  leaven  of  heretical  wickedness,  he  shall  be  deposed 
from  the  episcopal  office  and  another  put  in  his  place  who 
is  both  able  and  willing  to  destroy  heresy". 

Says  your  same  predecessor,  Innocent  III,  in  his  En- 
cyclical "Vergentis  in  Senium"'.  "In  the  territories  sub- 
ject to  our  temporal  jurisdiction,  we  decree  that  the  pos- 
sessions of  heretics  shall  be  confiscated.  In  other  terri- 
tories we  decree  that  the  self-same  thing  be  done  by  the 
secular  powers  and  princes ;  and  if  these  secular  powers 
and  princes  are  negligent  in  this  respect,  it  is  our  will  and 
command  that  they  be  compelled  to  it  by  ecclesiastical 
censures,  to  be  imposed  without  privilege  of  appeal.  For 
if,  according  to  civil  law,  the  possessions  of  those  capitally 
convicted  of  lese  majeste  are  confiscated,  so  that  nought 
is  given  to  their  children  except  life,  and  this  out  of 
mercy,  with  how  much  greater  reason  ought  they  to  be 
cut  off  by  ecclesiastical  sentence  from  Christ,  our  head, 
and  despoiled  of  all  temporal  goods,  who  err  in  faith  and 
offend  Jesus  Christ  the  true  Son  of  God ;  since  it  is  far 
more  heinous  to  injure  eternal  than  earthly  majesty. 
Neither  is  this  law  of  ours  to  shrink  from  despoiling  the 
orthodox  children  (of  heretical  parents)  on  any  pretext 
of  mercy  whatsoever  ;  for  in  many  cases,  some  of  them  di- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  21 

vinely  sanctioned,  the  children  must  suffer  temporally  for 
their  father's  fault ;  and,  according  to  canon  law,  punish- 
ment at  times  is  visited,  not  only  upon  the  authors  of 
crime,  but  upon  their  posterity".  (This  decree  concerning 
the  disinheriting  even  of  Catholic  children  of  heretical 
parents  is  embodied  in  the  official  canon  law  of  the  Roman 
Church.) 

Let  us  hear  still  again  this  Innocent  III  legislating  for 
the  universal  Church  in  his  capacity  of  supreme  moral 
and  doctrinal  teacher.  "We  strictly  forbid  you  lawyers 
and  notaries  from  giving  any  assistance,  counsel  or  favor 
to  heretics,  their  supporters  or  defenders ;  from  undertak- 
ing their  defence  in  lawsuits  or  the  defence  of  any  litigants 
acting  under  their  control ;  or  from  drawing  up  for  them 
any  public  instrument  or  document.  If  you  presume  to 
act  contrariwise  to  this  regulation,  we  decree  that  you  be 
removed  from  your  calling  and  subjected  to  perpetual  in- 
famy."    (From  "Si  adversus  vos  terra  consurgeret" .) 

Another  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ,  Gregory  IX,  lays  down 
the  law:  "If  any  of  the  aforesaid  (heretics)  refuse  to 
perform  condign  penance  after  they  have  been  appre- 
hended, they  are  to  be  shut  up  in  prison  for  life  (in  per- 
petuo  carcere  detrudantur,  from  Gregory's  'Sicut  in  uno 
cor  pore'  "). 

The  same  Pope  goes  a  step  further :  "Let  all  under- 
stand that  they  are  absolved  from  allegiance  to  their  civil 
ruler  when  he  has  fallen  into  manifest  heresy,  and  from 
all  service  to  any  one,  no  matter  how  sacredly  pledged  and 
promised,  if  the  one  to  whom  the  promise  has  been  made 


22  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

has  fallen  into  manifest  heresy".  This  extraordinary  text 
is  as  follows  in  the  original:  "Absolutos  se  noverint  a 
debito  fidelitatis  domini  et  totius  obsequii  quicumque  lapsis 
manifeste  in  haeresim  aliquo  pacto  quacumque  firmitate 
vallato  tenebantur  adstricti".  Clumsy  as  this  Latin  is,  its 
diabolical  significance  there  is  no  mistaking.  The  coer- 
cing of  civil  rulers  to  punish  and  destroy  heretics,  under 
penalty  of  forfeiting  their  crown,  if  remiss,  became  so 
consistent  a  practice  of  the  Roman  Church  that  the  prin- 
ciple is  set  down  in  the  Church's  official  Canon  Law. 
(Extravagantes.     Tit.  VII,  c-13). 

Often  quoted  (e.  g.  by  the  Catholic  priests  Vacandard 
and  Turmel,  see  Revue  du  Clerge  Francais,  Jan.  15, 
1907)  are  the  horrible  words  of  this  same  Gregory  IX  on 
the  Church's  attitude  toward  heresy:  "It  is  not  fitting 
that  the  Apostolic  See  should  withhold  its  hand  from 
bloodshed,  lest  it  fail  in  its  guardianship  of  the  people  of 
Israel".  "Nee  enim  decuit  apostolicam  sedem  *  *  * 
manum  suam  a  sanguine  prohibere,  ne  si  secus  ageret,  non 
custodire  populum  Israel  videretur".  (Letter  to  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Sens,  1234.) 

The  authority  of  these  citations  no  man,  not  even  the 
most  dexterous  casuist  of  the  school  of  Gury  or  Liguori 
can  impeach.  They  may  be  found  grouped  in  convenient 
proximity,  along  with  whole  pages  of  similar  legislation, 
in  the  classic  guide-book  for  Inquisitors,  the  Directorium 
Inquisltorum,  of  Nicholas  Eymeric,  the  Dominican  In- 
quisitor-General of  Aragon  (1399),  whose  exhaustive 
treatise — exhaustive  up  to  the  time  of  its  composition — 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  23 

gives  us  ample  information  on  the  anti-heretical  decrees 
of  Papal  Rome,  and  on  the  excellent  manner  in  which 
the  Pope's  janissaries  carried  them  into  effect. 

Let  me  add  here  one  or  two  lines  from  the  Corpus 
Juris,  the  official  law-book  of  the  Papacy : 

"We  decree  that  Jews  and  Saracens  shall  in  every 
Christian  Province  wear  a  special  garment  which  shall 
publicly  mark  them  off  from  other  people".  Decret. 
Greg.     lib.  V  Tit  Vi-c-15. 

"If  a  bishop  or  other  cleric  leaves  among  his  heirs  any 
relative  who  is  a  heretic,  that  bishop,  even  after  his 
death,  is  to  be  excommunicated".  lb.  lib  V.  Tit  VII. 
c-5,  6. 

"If  any  one  presumes  to  keep  heretics  in  his  house  or 
lands,  or  to  carry  on  business  with  them,  he  is  to  be  ex- 
communicated"     lb.  c-8. 

"The  possessions  of  heretics  are  to  be  confiscated.  In 
the  Church's  territory  they  are  to  go  to  the  Church's 
treasury;  in  the  territory  of  the  Empire,  they  are  to  go 
to  the  State  treasury,  even  though  the  heretics  have  Cath- 
olic children".     lb.  c-10. 

Paul  IV  thus  legislates  concerning  Jews :  "The  Roman 
Church  tolerates  Jews  as  a  testimony  to  the  true  Chris- 
tian faith.  Now  by  this  our  present  law,  which  we  de- 
clare to  hold  forever  (hoc  nostra  perpetuo  valitura  con- 
stitutione)  we  command  that  in  all  the  Church's  temporal 
possessions,  the  Jews  shall  live  in  separate  quarters,  to 
which  there  shall  be  but  one  road  of  entrance  and  one  of 
exit.     They   shall   possess  but  one   synagogue    in   eacfc 


24  LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 

place ;  any  synagogues  over  and  above  one  are  to  be  de- 
stroyed (demoliri  et  devastari).  Jews  shall  not  own 
houses  or  lands  (bona  immobilia)  :  Whatever  such  hold- 
ings they  possess  at  present  they  must  sell  to  Christians 
within  a  time  to  be  fixed  by  the  magistrates.  In  order 
that  Jews  may  be  everywhere  known  as  such,  beyond  pos- 
sibility of  concealment,  the  men  must  wear  a  yellow  hat, 
and  the  women  some  other  conspicuous  sign  of  the  same 
color.  From  this  no  Jew  is  to  be  exempt  on  any  pretext 
of  eminent  station  or  of  toleration.  The  Jews  who  trans- 
gress these  regulations  will  be  considered  rebels,  and 
guilty  of  lese  majeste". 

The  supreme  text-book,  standard  in  every  Catholic 
theological  school  in  the  world,  is  the  Summa  Theologica 
of  Thomas  Aquinas.  In  that  work  we  read :  "Respect- 
ing heretics,  we  have  two  observations  to  make :  In  the 
first  place  they  are  guilty  of  a  sin  by  which  they  deserve 
to  be  excluded,  not  only  from  the  Church  by  excommuni- 
cation, but  from  the  world  by  death.  *  *  *  In  the 
second  place,  the  Church  is  merciful  unto  the  conversion 
of  the  erring,  and  does  not  straightway  condemn.  It  is 
far  more  criminal  to  corrupt  the  faith  which  is  the  life 
of  the  soul  than  to  counterfeit  the  coin  of  the  realm 
which  is  a  convenience  for  earthly  life.  And  if  counter- 
feiters and  other  malefactors  are  justly  put  to  death  by 
the  secular  power,  for  a  greater  reason  may  heretics, 
when  convicted  of  heresy,  be  not  only  excommunicated 
but  justly  killed. 

"In  the  second  place  the  Church,  in  her  merciful  re- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  25 

gaid  for  the  conversion  of  the  erring,  does  not  immedi- 
ately condemn,  but  only  after  a  first  and  a  second  cor- 
rection, as  the  Apostle  says:  But  when  the  heretic  is 
stubborn,  the  Church,  despairing  of  his  conversion,  pro- 
vides for  the  safety  of  others  by  cutting  him  off  from  the 
Church  through  sentence  of  excommunication,  and  finally 
by  yielding  him  up  to  the  secular  power  to  be  killed  (a 
miindo  exterminandum  per  mortem}. 

"Those  coming  back  for  the  first  time  from  heresy  to 
the  Church,  the  Church  not  only  admits  to  penance,  but 
even  preserves  in  life ;  sometimes  she  even  restores  to 
them  ecclesiastical  dignities  which  they  may  have  had 
before.  *  *  *  But  when  they  relapse  again  into  her- 
esy, it  is  a  sign  of  inconstancy  in  faith ;  and  therefore 
when  they  once  more  come  back  they  are  allowed  indeed 
to  do  penance,  but  are  not  free  from  sentence  of  death." 
(Summa-pars  2a  2dae  quaest,  Xl-art.  3  et  4.) 

VII 

The   Inquisition 

Your  Holiness: 

The  attitude  of  the  Papacy  toward  freedom  of  con- 
science, as  indicated  in  the  preceding  pages,  is  such  as  to 
call  down  upon  the  office  you  hold  the  execration  of  man- 
kind. Any  man  or  any  office  that  has  taught  that  Chris- 
tian people,  who  conscientiously  worship  God  and  inter- 
pret the  Lord's  Gospel  in  other  than  the  Roman  manner, 
cannot  hold  property ;  that  such  as  they  do  hold  shall  be 


26  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

plundered  by  the  "faithful" ;  that  princes  who  are  indul- 
gent to  them  shall  be  deposed ;  that  the  heretic  himself 
shall  be  as  a  dog  among  men,  unable  to  give  testimony 
in  court,  unable  to  hire  legal  help  in  his  necessity,  unable 
to  bequeath  his  savings  to  his  flesh  and  blood ;  and  that 
he  is  to  be  immured  in  prison  for  life — such  a  man,  or 
such  an  office,  appealing  to  the  suffrage  and  support  of 
civilized  mankind  to-day,  must  receive  no  other  answer 
than  a  Canaanite,  returning  now  to  earth  after  four  thou- 
sand years  would  receive,  who  should  ask  us  to  worship 
Baal,  and  to  cast  our  little  children  into  the  burning 
arms  of  Moloch.  And  yet  I  have  not  even  begun  the 
story  of  Rome's  trampling  upon  the  highest  right  of  man. 
Papal  decrees,  and  conciliar  laws,  prescribing  confiscation 
and  imprisonment,  are  only  the  introductory  chapter.  We 
hrve  not  even  glanced  as  yet  upon  the  enormous  ma- 
chinery designed  and  empowered  by  the  Papacy  for  car- 
rying these  regulations  into  their  appalling  execution.  I 
have  no  intention  of  entering  into  a  detailed  history  of 
the  Inquisition — the  name  of  this  machinery — but  I  will 
set  down  a  brief  summary  of  facts  leading  up  to  and  con- 
cerning this  institution,  designed,  one  would  say,  in  Hell, 
did  one  not  know  that  its  inventors  were  Popes. 
A.  D.  1 1 57 — The  Council  of  Rheims  orders  branding  in 

the  face  for  heretics. 
1166 — This  decree  adopted  by  the  Council  of  Oxford. 
1 184 — Pope  Lucius  Ill's  decree  to  the  Council  of  Verona 

orders  princes  to  enforce  the  full  penalties  against 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  2"] 

heretics,  under  penalty  of  excommunication,  should 
they  be  remiss  in  enforcing  them. 

1 197 — The  burning  of  heretics  first  made  positive  law  by 
Pedro  II  of  Aragon. 

1220 — Emperor  Frederic  II  prescribes  outlawry  and  con- 
fiscation against  heretics. 

1221-1226 — Legates  of  Pope  Honorius  III  go  to  enforce 
this  law  into  the  few  Italian  cities  which  were  dis- 
inclined to  receive  it. 

1224 — Frederic  II,  going  a  step  further,  promulgates  in 
Lombardy  a  law  that  heretics  should  be  burned,  or 
should,  at  least,  have  their  tongues  cut  out. 

1230 — This  law,  inscribed  in  the  Papal  registers  by  Greg- 
ory IX,  whose  chief  agent  in  enforcing  it  was  Guala, 
the  Dominican  bishop  of  Brescia. 

1 23 1 — Frederic  II  takes  final  step,  in  his  famous  Sicilian 
constitutions,  of  absolutely  decreeing  death  by  fire 
for  heretics.  Shortly  afterward  the  Emperor  ap- 
plied this  Sicilian  law  to  the  whole  Empire.  How 
quickly  the  law  came  to  be  applied  may  be  under- 
stood from  the  fact  that  in  1233  sixty  heretics  were 
burned  at  Verona,  and  in  1239,  one  hundred  and 
eighty-three  heretics  were  burned  at  Mont-Aime,  in 
France. 

1252 — Innocent  IV's  bull,  commanding  under  threat  of 
excommunication  that  temporal  rulers  should  en- 
force all  penalties  against  heretics  within  five  days 
from  their  conviction  as  such.  This  bull  he  ordered 
inserted  in  the  Imperial  Statutes  for  Italy. 


28  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

1254 — Innocent  IV  issues  a  bull  incorporating  the  most 
bloody  laws  of  Emperor  Frederic  II. 
Inasmuch  as  this  celebrated  constitution  of  Innocent 
IV,  the  Ad  extir panda,  as  it  is  known,  became  classic  in 
inquisitorial  procedure,  it  will  be  useful  to  set  forth  its 
leading  enactments.  It  is  addressed  to  all  the  rulers 
of  Italy,  and  provides:  1st,  that  any  one  may  seize  a 
heretic,  and  despoil  him  of  his  property ;  2nd,  that  every 
magistrate  shall  appoint  an  inquisitorial  commission, 
whose  salaries  are  to  be  paid  by  the  State ;  3rd,  that  no 
law  may  be  passed  interfering  with  these  Inquisitors ; 
4th,  that  heretics  who  will  not  confess  their  heresy  shall 
be  tortured ;  5th,  that  the  houses  of  heretics  shall  be  de- 
molished ;  6th,  that  the  confiscated  property  of  heretics 
shall  be  thus  divided,  one-third  to  the  inquisitors  and  the 
bishops,  one-third  to  the  city,  and  one-third  to  those  who 
aided  in  the  arrest  and  conviction. 

This,  as  we  have  noted,  was  made  statute  law,  and 
Innocent  gave  particular  instructions  to  the  inquisitors 
to  enforce  it,  as  well  as  the  anti-heretical  laws  of  Fred- 
eric II. 

1265 — Pope  Clement  IV  re-promulgates  the  Ad  extir- 
panda;  Nicholas  IV  does  likewise  a  quarter-century 
later. 
1259 — Alexander  IV  re-issues  the  Ad  extir  panda. 
1265 — Urban  IV  makes  universal  the  excommunication 
of  civil  authorities  who  impede  or  delay  the  operation 
of  the  Inquisition.  This  is  incorporated  in  the 
Church's  Canon  Law.     Magistrates  who  fail  to  exe- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  2Q 

cute  the  sentence  of  the  Inquisition  are  not  only  ex- 
communicated, but  if  their  negligence  continue  for  a 
year,  they  are  to  be  themselves  proceeded  against  for 
the  capital  crime  of  heresy. 
1270 — Burning  made  the  legal  death-penalty  for  heretics 

in  France. 
1335 — Pope  Benedict  XII  writes  to  Edward  III  of  Eng- 
land, complaining  of  the  fact  that  the  "useful  and 
holy  Inquisition"  was  not  yet  established  in  the  Eng- 
lish realm,  and  urging  the  king  to  give  the  assistance 
of  the  secular  power  to  the  bishop  of  Ossory,  a  Fran- 
ciscan monster  who  had  already  caused  some  heretics 
to  be  burned.     In  1401  England  established  burning 
as  the  penalty  for  heresy. 
At  first  the  carrying  out  of  the  Papal  laws  against  her- 
esy was  committed  to  the  bishops,  the  jure  divino  rulers 
of  the  Church.     Thus  the  Council  of  Narbonne,  in  1227, 
ordered  bishops  to  have  in  every  parish  of  their  jurisdic- 
tion agents  for  the  hunting  down  of  heretics.     But  the 
bishops,   showing  too  little   of  the   spirit  of  murderers, 
displeased   highly   the   "Holy"   See.     What   the    Papacy 
required  was  a  corps  of  janissaries,  a  band  of  fanatics 
who   would   make  torture   and   homicide   the   subject  of 
their  study  and  the  business  of  their  life.     Such  an  or- 
ganization was  ready  at  hand  in  the  Dominican  and  Fran- 
ciscan orders.     These,  under  Pope  Gregory  IX,  entered 
upon  their  career  as  Inquisitors,  armed  with  such  author- 
ity  from  the   Papacy  as  made  bishops,   by  comparison, 
quite  insignificant  personages.     This  is  the  first  notable 


30  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

instance  in  history  of  the  Papacy's  contempt  for  the  pre- 
sumably divine  institution  of  the  episcopate,  and  of  the 
adoption  of  religious  orders  as  the  Pope's  chief  instru- 
mentality in  governing  the  world.  Such  progress  has 
this  procedure  now  made,  that  at  this  day  and  hour  the 
whole  ecumenical  body  of  bishops  has  not  so  much 
weight  in  the  Roman  Curia  as  the  generals  of  half  a 
dozen  orders  of  monks.  Bitterly  as  the  bishops  complain 
of  their  degradation,  they  have  only  their  own  jealousy, 
pusillanimity  and  flunkeyism  to  thank  for  it. 

Armed  with  the  amplest  powers  which  the  Papacy  has 
ever  delegated  to  its  agents,  the  Dominicans  and  Francis- 
cans swarmed  over  Europe,  setting  up  the  Inquisition 
everywhere,  and  everywhere  leaving  in  their  track  terror, 
pillage,  perjury,  delation,  torture,  woe  and  death.  Over 
Europe,  did  I  say?  Yes,  and  beyond  Europe  to  the  very 
frontiers  of  Christianity.  For  even  on  missionary  out- 
posts, where  barbarians  came  together  to  learn  the  good 
tidings,  the  Inquisition  was  set  up  to  teach  them  of  Jesus, 
and  of  His  first  and  greatest  commandment,  which  is 
Love !  Gregory  XI  appointed  a  Dominican  Inquisitor 
for  Russia  and  Armenia ;  Urban  VI  asked  the  General  of 
the  Dominicans  to  appoint  Inquisitors  for  Armenia, 
Greece  and  Tartary ;  Nicholas  IV  allowed  the  Patriarch 
of  Jerusalem  to  appoint  Inquisitors  from  the  mendicant 
friars ;  Gregory  XI  empowered  the  Franciscan  provincial 
in  the  Holy  Land  to  act  as  Inquisitor-in-chief  for  Syria, 
Palestine  and  Egypt.    Even  in  Abyssinia  we  find  indicn- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  31 

tions  of  the  tribunal's  existence ;  and  our  own  continent 
of  America  has  known  the  shame  and  horror  of  it. 

Your  Holiness  must  know  the  procedure  of  this  insti- 
tution thus  blessed  and  empowered  by  your  precedessors. 
When  the  Inquisitors  arrived  in  a  parish,  proclamation 
was  made  of  their  presence  and  purpose.  The  faithful 
were  commanded  to  denounce  anyone  whom  they  even 
suspected  of  the  slightest  heresy.  An  indulgence  of  three 
years  was  bestowed  on  informers,  while  those  who  with- 
held their  information  were  visited  with  excommunication 
incurred  ipso  facto.  A  man  thus  delated,  very  often 
merely  because  of  having  let  fall  an  incautious  word,  or 
just  as  often  probably  because  of  a  private  grudge,  was  at 
once  arrested  and  flung  into  prison.  The  whole  purpose 
of  his  trial  was  to  extort  a  confession  of  heresy.  When 
he  appeared  before  his  monkish  judges,  the  very  name  of 
his  accuser  was  concealed  from  him,  and  if  he  persisted 
in  denying  his  guilt,  he  was  put  to  torture.  Two  com- 
plainants, and  in  many  cases  even  one,  were  judged  suf- 
ficient ground  for  the  infliction  of  torture  even  upon  a 
man  of  hitherto  unblemished  reputation. 

This  infamous  feature  of  inquisitorial  trial  was  due 
directly  to  Pope  Innocent  IV,  as  the  priest,  Vacandard, 
confesses.  Not  one,  or  at  most  one,  of  the  barbarian 
nations  of  Europe  made  use  of  torture  in  legal  processes. 
It  was  reserved  for  the  earthly  representative  of  Christ 
to  sink  to  this,  the  lowest  infamy  ever  reached  by  man. 
Frequently  the   first  stage   in   procuring  the   confession 


2)2  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

required  before  sentence  of  conviction  could  be  given, 
consisted  in  sending  the  accused  man  to  prison.  At  first 
he  was  thrust  into  the  common  dungeon  and  there  trained 
spies  and  specialists  in  delation,  craftily  beset  him  to  be- 
guile him  into  some  direct  or  indirect  acknowledgment 
of  guilt.  Should  this  prove  insufficient,  he  was  immured 
in  the  durus  career,  the  "cruel  prison",  a  foul  hole  in 
which,  half  starved  and  bound  with  chains,  he  might  be 
expected  to  come  to  a  better  mind.  Or  if  the  career  and 
the  durus  career  were  judged  too  slow,  or  in  the  event 
had  proved  inefficacious,  there  was  left  the  torture-cham- 
ber of  the  holy  monks.  Into  this  room  the  victim — still 
legally  an  innocent  man,  be  it  remembered — was  brought, 
and  put  to  one  or  all  of  the  varieties  of  anguish  which 
the  Inquisitors  possessed  abundant  means  of  inflicting 
The  favorite  arguments  of  this  sort  were  three:  greas- 
ing the  victim's  feet  and  thrusting  them  into  the  fire; 
the  triangular  rack  which  dislocated  the  body  stretched 
upon  it ;  and  the  hoisting  of  the  man  to  the  ceiling  by  a 
rope  about  his  hands,  which  were  tied  behind  his  back, 
and  then  letting  him  fall  suddenly  to  within  a  few  inches 
of  the  floor. 

Let  me  interrupt  this  ghastly  story  to  point  out  one 
of  those  loathsome  exhibitions  of  casuistry  with  which 
Roman  theology  is  diseased.  The  Inquisitors  were  for- 
bidden to  inflict  torture  more  than  once  upon  the  same 
man  for  the  extortion  of  confession.  Did  the  Inquisitors 
quietly  accept  such  a  limitation  of  their  august  office, 
their  "Holy  Office,"   as  their  institution   is   canonically 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  33 

styled?  Far  from  it.  They  were  too  clever  in  theology 
not  to  know  how  to  keep  and  break  a  law  at  the  same 
time.  So  they  inflicted  each  species  of  torture  once. 
Whosoever  cannot  see  that  this  is  torturing  a  man  only 
once,  need  but  consult  any  seminarian  fresh  from  his 
Roman  text-books.  Or  they  inflicted  torture  once  for 
each  distinct  complaint.  Obviously  the  law  of  one  tor- 
ture is  saved  again.  Finally  by  the  sublimest  of  all  exer- 
cise of  theological  skill,  they  tortured  their  man  on  differ- 
ent days,  not  by  way  of  adding  a  new  torture,  but  only 
of  continuing  the  old !  "Non  ad  iterandum,  sed  ad  con- 
tinuandum,"  Eymerich,  the  classic  guide  of  Inquisitors, 
puts  it. 

With  this  putrid  casuistry  before  your  eyes,  we  shall 
hardly  be  astonished  to  read  that  the  Inquisitors  after 
having  pronounced  capital  sentence  of  heresy  upon  a 
man,  handed  him  over  to  the  "secular  arm",  with  the 
prayer  that  the  civil  authorities  would  not  kill  him ; 
whereas,  in  point  of  fact,  if  they  failed  to  kill  him,  they 
would  be  themselves  excommunicated  and  put  on  trial 
for  their  own  lives.  Neither  shall  it  be  a  surprise  to  us 
to  learn  that  on  Papal  authority  the  Inquisitors  actually 
encouraged  children  to  denounce  the  heretical  tendencies 
of  their  fathers,  and  decided  that  children  so  acting  should 
not  be  deprived,  despite  the  law  of  Innocent  III,  of  a 
share  in  their  father's  confiscated  property.  Says  Inno- 
cent IV,  cited  by  Vacandard  in  Revue  dn  Clerge  Francois, 
April  15,  1906,  page  363:  "We  deem  it  right  that  ortho- 
dox children  who  reveal  the  secret  heretical  perfidy  of 


34  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

their  parents,  should  not  be  subjected  to  loss  of  inherit- 
ance." ("Nee  quidam  a  misericordiae  finibus  duximus 
excludendum  ut  si  qui  paternse  hseresis  non  sequaces, 
latentem  patrum  perfidiam  revelaverint,  quacumque  reatus 
illorum  animadversione  plectantur,  prsedictse  punitioni 
[i.  e.  loss  of  inheritance]  non  subjiceat  innocentia 
filiorum.") 

Does  your  Holiness  still  wonder  why  the  civilized 
world  abhors  the  traditional  Roman  Papacy?  Do  you 
think  it  still  necessary  in  explanation  of  that  abhorrence 
to  saddle  Satan  and  Freemasonry  with  the  responsibility  ? 

VIII 
The  Inquisition  (Continued) 

Your  Holiness: 

How  many  thousands  of  lives  ended  at  the  Inquisitors' 
stake;  how  great  a  multitude  languished  in  their  dun- 
geons ;  how  large  the  number  of  dislocated,  racked  and 
blistered  bodies  that  were  carried  from  their  torture- 
chambers  ;  how  vast  the  treasure  of  just  possessions  they 
confiscated  and  pillaged,  during  the  long  interval  be- 
tween the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  and  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth,  we  cannot  accurately  tell. 
Whether  such  figures  as  Llorente  gives,  for  example,  that 
in  1482  two  thousand  persons  were  burned  at  Seville 
alone,  be  exaggerated  or  not,  I  need  not  pause  to  deter- 
mine. Enough  for  us  to  know  that  the  Dominican  and 
Franciscan  monsters  in  control  of  the  Inquisition,  enor- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  35 

mous  as  were  the  powers  granted  them  by  the  Popes, 
resorted  to  the  lowest  casuistry  to  enlarge  them.  Enough 
for  us  to  know  that  nearly  every  timid  effort  to  mitigate 
the  horrors  of  their  tribunal  met  with  their  bitter  oppo- 
sition, as  when  they  protested  to  the  Pope  against  an 
archbishop  of  Toulouse  in  1350  who  had  procured  some 
alleviation  of  the  heretic's  "durus  career".  Enough  for 
us  to  read  the  words  of  a  king  of  France  who  had  him- 
self taken  an  oath  to  destroy  heresy,  protesting  in  the 
name  of  humanity  against  the  butcheries  and  injustices 
of  the  Inquisition.  Philippe  le  Bel  is  the  king,  and  his 
complaint  is  that  the  Inquisitors  at  Carcassonne  were  put- 
ting wholly  innocent  people  to  new  ingenuities  of  torture 
("tormenta  de  novo  exquisita")  to  extort  from  them  accu- 
sations against  both  living  and  dead.  Against  another 
Inquisitor,  Philippe  writes  the  charge  that  he  is  forcing 
people  to  confess  by  terror  and  the  use  of  incredible  tor- 
ture (inexcogitatis  tormentis     .     .     .     fatcri  compellit). 

But  had  we  no  other  shred  of  proof  of  the  blood- 
thirstiness  of  this  Papal  tribunal,  its  achievements  in  the 
suppression  of  witchcraft  were  enough  to  damn  it  for- 
evermore.  Belief  in  witches  and  in  their  malevolence 
in  causing  every  species  of  misfortune  through  alliance 
with  the  Prince  of  night  has  been  solemnly  enunciated 
from  the  Roman  See. 

In  his  celebrated  bull,  "Summis  desiderantes"  of  1484, 
Innocent  VIII,  supreme  teacher  of  pure  religion,  tells 
his  contemporaries  and  posterity  that  reports  of  most 
uncanny  goings-on  have  reached  him  out  of  Germany. 


36  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

Men    and   women   are   holding   carnal    intercourse    with 
devils — dcemoncs    succubi   and   darinones   incubi.     These 
consorts  of  the  damned  have  acquired  alarming  power 
over  the  laws  and  general  conduct  of  this  universe.     By 
divers  incantations,  spells,  and  conjurations,  they  are  de- 
stroying the  fruit  of  the  womb,  causing  child-abortions 
and  animal-abortions.     They  are  blighting   crops,  vine- 
yards and  cattle.     They  mysteriously  inflict  excruciating 
torments   upon  man   and  beast.     They  have  brought   it 
about  that  men  cannot  procreate  nor  women  conceive. 
Exercised  at  this  widespread  deviltry,  Innocent  says  that 
he  is  forthwith  sending  Inquisitors  into  Germany,  who 
will  combat  the  evil  with  confiscation,  imprisonment  and 
other    punishments    ("corrigere,   incarcerare,    punire    et 
initlctare").     He  concludes  with  the  fearful  words  which, 
so  often  appended  to  Inquisitorial  authorization,  stifled 
every  voice  of  humanitarian  protest.     "If  any  man  of  any 
station  whatsoever  dares  to  interfere  with  these  Inquisi- 
tors, he  will  be  excommunicated,  suspended  if  he  be  a 
cleric,  and  laid  under  interdict  if  he  be  in  civil  authority. 
Not  only  these,  but  other  and  worse  penalties  will  be  in- 
flicted upon  him  ("ac  alias  etiam  formidabiliores  censuras 
et  p(cnas"y\ 

The  Inquisitors  to  whom  Innocent  entrusted  the  cam- 
paign against  witches  were  Institoris  and  Sprenger,  both 
of  the  order  of  Dominicans,  the  latter,  author  of  the  Mal- 
leus MaleHcarum,  "Hammer  of  Witches,"  perhaps  the 
greatest  monument  of  murderous  superstition  in  human 
literature.     Their   activities   were   a   prolonged   orgy   of 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  37 

blood.  For  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  work  begun 
by  them  went  on  and  resulted  in  a  deadlier  devastation 
than  ever  stained  the  soul  of  Attila  or  Genghis  Khan. 
One  of  the  Inquisition's  champions,  Louis  of  Paramo, 
tells  us  with  pride  that  in  those  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  the  Papal  emissaries  had  burned  thirty  thousand 
witches  and  sorcerers.  Only  in  1637  did  Rome  speak  a 
word  of  chicling  against  the  wild  excesses  of  these  monk- 
butchers  of  old  women,  (v.  Vacandard  in  Rev.  d„  CI. 
Francais,  March  15,  1906.) 

Is  there  any  need  of  carrying  this  history  of  atrocity 
into  further  detail?  Need  I  mention  the  Inquisitorial 
process  against  the  dead,  in  which,  upon  posthumous 
accusations,  the  property  of  men  who  died  in  peace  and 
to  all  appearance  even  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  was 
confiscated,  and  their  bones  dug  up  and  burned?  Need 
I  mention  specific  instances  to  show  that  the  Papal  In- 
quisition debauched  the  morality  of  Europe  for  five 
hundred  years,  teaching  the  innocence  of  confiscation, 
the  virtue  of  delation,  and  the  godliness  of  murder? 
Need  I  show  that,  because  of  the  Inquisition,  the  moral 
sense  had  been  so  perverted  that  butchery  became  a  fea- 
ture in  holiday  celebrations,  and  great  lords  and  great 
ladies  were  invited  to  festivals  of  torture?  An  auto-da  fe 
in  which  many  were  burned,  was  held  under  the  In- 
quisitor-General of  Spain,  Sarmentio  Valladores,  in  1695. 
to  celebrate  the  marriage  of  Charles  II  and  Marie  Louise 
of    Bourbon.     Likewise    Elizabeth    of    Valois,    daughter 


38  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

of  the  King  of  France,  while  still  a  mere  girl,  was  pres- 
ent at  the  burning  of  several  more,  on  the  festival  occa- 
sion of  her  espousal  to  Philip  II  in  1560. 

Butchery  a  sport  and  torture  a  play !  behold  Sovereign 
Pontiff,  whither  peoples  have  brought  up,  who  have  in 
time  past  followed  where  the  Roman  Shepherd  led ! 

But  throughout  this  whole  revolting  story,  that  which 
causes  the  student  most  perplexity  and  amazement  is 
the  attitude  of  mind,  the  state  of  soul,  of  the  Inquisitors 
themselves.  These  men  were  monks;  they  had  re- 
nounced the  world ;  they  made  it  their  life-profession  to 
follow  Christ.  To  follow  Christ !  the  merciful  Lover  of 
men,  the  Healer  of  suffering  bodies,  the  patient  Teacher 
of  those  that  erred !  In  His  Name  they  turned  the  dislo- 
cating rack ;  they  flung  live  coals  on  bare  feet ;  they 
delivered  men  to  the  agony  of  the  stake;  they  plundered 
property ;  they  incited  children  to  spy  upon  their  fathers 
and  swear  away  their  lives !  In  His  name !  Let  us 
listen  to  one  of  these  monstrosities,  one  of  these  prodi- 
gies, one  of  these  perverts,  who  could  read  the  sermon 
on  the  Mount  while  the  shrieks  of  a  tortured  man  smote 
upon  his  ears.  Let  us  listen  to  one  of  the  greatest  of 
them,  one  of  the  most  learned,  whose  name  is  to  this 
day  a  high  authority  in  Moral  Theology. 

Antonianus  Diana,  Regular  Clerk,  was  consultor  of 
the  Inquisition  for  the  Kingdom  of  Sicily.  In  his  huge 
Resolutiones  Morales,  part  the  fourth,  tract  the  sixth, 
we  find  the  following  caption :  De  Tortura  in  Sanctd 
Officio    Suspect  is     Vehementer    de    Hccresi    Infer  enda 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  39 

("Concerning  the  Infliction  of  Torture  in  the  Holy  Office 
Upon  Those  Gravely  Suspected  of  Heresy").  After  the 
manner  of  theologians  of  his  time,  Diana  treats  his  ma- 
terial in  the  form  of  questions  and  answers.  We  give  a 
few  specimens  of  his  queries  and  solutions. 
1st — Ought  Inquisitors  to  be  strongly  inclined  (proni- 
ores)  to  inflict  torture? 

Yes;  "Quia  crimen  hceresis  est  occultum  ct  difhcilis 
probationis" — because  the  crime  of  heresy  is  occult, 
and  hard  to  prove.  Moreover,  of  the  three  Inquisi- 
torial processes,  purgatio,  abjaratio  and  tortura,  this 
last  is  the  most  efficacious  for  getting  at  the  truth, 
as  Pegna  and  Eymerich  teach. 
2nd — What  proofs  of  heresy  ought  the  Inquisitors  to 
have  before  they  proceed  to  torture? 

In  answer  Diana  cites  several  authorities  to  show 
that    the    proofs    need    be    only    slight    indications 
(leviora  indicia). 
3rd — If  a  man  has  been  tortured  once,  and  new  evidence 
against   him   comes   to   hand,    may    he   be   tortured 
again? 
Yes. 
4th — If  a  man  under  accusation  has   run  away,   is  this 
sufficient  reason  for  torturing  him? 

Authorities   differ;   there   is  ground    for   both   an 
affirmative  and  a  negative  answer. 
5th — May  torture  be  inflicted  upon  children  of  fourteen 
years,  upon  pregnant  women,  old  men,  and  those 
sick  of  fever? 


40  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

For  the  affirmative,  Diana  cites  the  following  au- 
thorities :  Joseph  Sesse,  a  consultor  of  the  Holy 
Office  (vir  doctus,  "a  learned  man,"  says  Diana)  ; 
Castrus  Palaus,  Eymerich  and  others.  In  the  nega- 
tive are  Diana  himself  and  Delrius.  Women,  adds 
Diana,  should  not  be  tortured  until  forty  days  after 
childbirth. 

6th — The  thirty-fifth  Resohitio  informs  us  that  in  case 
the  accused  man  is  sick,  the  custom  in  Sicily  is  to 
torture  his  feet  with  fire,  "ei  dabant  tormentum  ignis 
in  pedes". 

7th — If  the  Inquisitors  act  upon  only  a  probable  opinion 
in  inflicting  torture,  though  there  is  a  more  probable 
opinion  forbidding  torture  in  the  particular  instance, 
may  they  be  punished  for  so  doing? 
No. 

8th — Tract  7.  Resohitio  28.  May  the  Inquisitors  pro- 
ceed against  a  dead  heretic? 

Yes ;  a  dead  heretic  must  be  condemned,  and  his 
possessions  confiscated,  even  if  they  have  passed  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  heir.  Furthermore,  his  bones 
are  to  be  dug  up  if  this  be  possible.  "Haereticus 
mortuus  damandus  est,  et  ejus  bona  fisco  sunt  appli- 
canda,  etiamsi  devenerint  in  manus  tertii  posses- 
soris". 

9th — When  Inquisitors  disagree  with  the  bishops  as  to 
the  torture  to  be  inflicted,  recourse  must  be  had  to 
the  Roman  Pontiff. 

10th — Tract  8.     Resohitio  20.     In  cases  of  heresy  there 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  41 

is  no  appeal  from  the  sentence  of  the  Inquisition. 
ib.  Res.  26 — If  a  civil  judge  will  not  execute  the 
sentence  of  the  Inquisition  the  Inquisition  may  pro- 
ceed against  him  as  fautor  hccresis,  "a  defender  of 
heresy". 

nth — Is  the  testimony  of  a  man's  deadly  enemy  (inimi- 
cus  capitalis)  to  be  received  against  him? 
Generally,  no;  but  in  cases  of  heresy,  yes. 

1 2th — Res.  43.  Are  the  possessions  of  heretics  turned 
over  to  the  Inquisitors? 

"I  speak  not,"  answers  Diana,  "for  other  coun- 
tries, but  the  Spanish  custom  is  to  confiscate  to  the 
royal  treasury  (fisco  regio)  all  the  possessions  of 
heretics  (omnia  bona  hcereticornm),  because  our 
king,  who  is  a  pillar  of  orthodoxy,  (columna  fidei), 
generously  supplies  the  Inquisitors  and  their  agents 
with  whatever  the  Holy  Office  requires  ("Inquisi- 
toribus  et  eorum  ministris  abunde  suppeditat  quid- 
quid  necessarium  est  ad  conservationem  Sanctse 
Inquisitionis"). 

13th — Res.  44-  May  penitent  heretics  retain  their  pos- 
sessions by  Inquisitorial  permission? 

This  question  is  bitterly  controverted  (acriter  dis- 
pntatur). 

14th — Are  the  Inquisitors  bound  to  give  some  share  of 
the  goods  confiscated  from  a  heretical  father  to  his 
children  ? 

A  few  maintain  the  affirmative,  but  many  great 
doctors  say,  No. 


42  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

15th — When  a  heretic's  possessions  are  confiscated  to  the 
treasury,  is  the  treasury  bound  to  pay  his  debts? 

Yes,  if  the  debts  were  contracted  before  he  fell 
into  heresy. 

No,  if  the  debts  came  after  the  heresy. 
Sovereign  Pontiff,  do  you  think  it  to  the  glory  or  to 
the  shame  of  your  office — the  Christ-vicegerency  on  earth 
— that  it  alone  among  the  institutions  of  history,  whether 
of  savage  or  civilized  men,  has  made  an  elaborate  science 
to  be  seriously  studied  by  learned  doctors,  out  of  robbery, 
hatred,  torture  and  homicide? 

IX 

Can    Infallibility    Survive    the    Inquisition 

Your  Holiness: 

From  the  facts  narrated  in  the  preceding  letters,  and 
the  texts  there  cited — facts  and  texts  which  are  abso- 
lutely indisputable — there  follow  some  very  serious  con- 
sequences. In  the  first  place,  we  may  learn  from  them 
at  least  this  primary  lesson,  that  we  are  not  to  take 
blindfold  whatever  the  Roman  See  puts  before  us,  but 
we  are  to  subject  Papal  utterances  to  the  analysis  of 
reason,  and  to  the  test  of  Christ's  life  and  teaching.  A 
primary  lesson  indeed,  but  one  which  the  orthodox  Catho- 
lic mind  finds  it  apparently  impossible  to  learn.  The  idea 
of  Papal  authority  has  grown  so  huge,  so  grinding,  so 
blighting,  in  the  Catholic  system,  that  the  fundamental 
rights  and  duties  of  personality  are  destroyed,  and  the 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  43 

light  of  reason  it  sometimes  seems,  trampled  to  extinc- 
tion. The  Pope  says  this,  a  Roman  Curialist  says  that, 
and  lo !  neither  reason  nor  morality  must  open  its  eyes ; 
character  must  not  assert  its  individuality ;  we  must  be 
as  corpses  wearing  whatever  rags  or  raiment  be  put  upon 
us,  or  as  camels  kneeling  stupidly  to  have  our  load  in- 
creased. Had  Catholics  any  adequate  idea  of  person- 
ality, of  initiative,  of  the  laws  of  life-growth  and  char- 
acter-growth, they  never  would  have  accepted  so  essen- 
tially diseased  and  destructive  a  conception.  They  would 
have  recognized  that  it  is  not  by  such  straight- jacketing 
that  God  educates  the  race,  but  rather  by  the  ventures, 
vicissitudes  and  perils  of  a  free  mind  and  an  assertive 
spirit.  They  would  have  seen  that  an  obedience  pur- 
chased by  the  sacrifice  of  reason  is  immoral,  and  a  unity 
demanding  automatism  from  its  units,  begins  by  annihi- 
lating those  powers  within  us  which  it  is  the  very  pur- 
pose of  religion  to  make  vital,  vigorous,  and  perfect. 
But  Catholics  are  untrained  in  the  way  of  freedom. 
Life,  growth,  initiative,  personality, — these  are  not  the 
words  one  hears  in  Catholic  schools,  or  reads  in  Catholic 
books,  or  finds  preached  from  Catholic  pulpits ;  but  onlv 
obedience,  authority,  faith,  dumb  submission,  blind  accept- 
ance, the  sin  of  doubt,  the  pride  of  intellect.  It  will  be 
indeed  a  service  rendered  if  these  letters  do  no  more 
than  wake  up  the  intelligence  of  some  few  of  those  who 
have  allowed  themselves  to  be  deadened  by  a  false  idea 
of  authority,  to  a  sense  of  the  essential  dishonor  of  their 
present  condition.     Surely   if  anything  can  wake  them 


44  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

up  it  is  the  historic  attitude  of  the  Papacy  towards  liberty 
of  conscience.  If  Popes  through  a  long  space  of  cen- 
turies have  officially  taught  theft  and  bloodshed,  it  should 
be  in  no  state  of  uncritical  and  ox-like  obedience  that  we 
receive  their  words  today. 

A  second  result  that  flows  from  a  study  of  the  Papal 
teaching  that  we  have  seen  organically  embodied  in  the 
Inquisition  is  still  more  serious.  In  the  fourth  of  these 
letters  I  adverted  to  the  commonplace  truth  that  Christ's 
religion  cannot  contravene  morality,  and  that  if  any  man 
or  society  does  contravene  morality,  that  man  or  society 
is  straightway  proved  to  be  in  contradiction  and  apostasy 
to  Christ.  What,  then,  in  view  of  the  Inquisition,  be- 
comes of  the  Pope's  infallibility?  The  Popes,  as  official 
teachers,  as  lawgivers  of  Christendom,  have  declared,  the 
declarations  being  to  this  day  written  in  authoritative 
Canon  Law,  that  heretics  are  incapable  of  holding  prop- 
erty, and  that  their  possessions  are  to  be  taken  from  them 
without  the  slightest  recompense.  Is  not  this  robbery? 
Can  the  growing  conscience  of  mankind  possibly  call  it 
by  any  other  name?  The  Popes  again  in  their  highest 
official  capacity  have  taught  that  heretics  and  witches  are 
to  be  tortured  and  killed.  Have  we  any  other  word  for 
this  than  brutality  and  murder?  The  Popes,  once  more 
as  the  heads  of  Christendom,  have  organized,  authorized, 
and  supported  an  institution  which  for  five  centuries  was 
a  living  teacher  of  cruelty  and  treachery,  and  a  relent- 
less agent  of  barbarity.  Were  they  thereby  true  or  false 
to  Jesus?     What  if  one  or  two  of  them  made  remon- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  45 

strances  against  the  Inquisition's  excesses,  this  puts  no 
new  aspect  on  the  question.  During  those  five  centuries 
the  massive  weight  of  their  teaching  and  authority 
encouraged,  and  more  than  encouraged,  taught  and 
enforced,  plunder  and  bloodshed.  In  doing  so  they  sub- 
verted moral  principles,  they  corrupted  the  moral  sense, 
they  violated  the  Christ-ideal.  What  becomes  of  Papal 
Infallibility?  What  other  conclusion  is  possible  to  an 
open  mind  than  this,  that  the  developing  conscience  of 
man,  in  holding  this  sort  of  persecution  a  crime,  is  right 
and  in  accordance  with  Christ ;  and  that  the  Papacy  in 
maintaining  the  contrary  is  wrong  and  essentially  apos- 
tate to  Christ?  Must  we  not  in  sound  reason  revise  our 
idea  of  infallibility,  and  hold  that  the  Pope  is  infallible 
only  when  he  truly  interprets  the  Christ-spirit  and  the 
Christ-mind,  and  that  the  proximate  criterion  of  his 
doing  so  is  the  collective  growing  conscience  of  spirit- 
ually cultivated  men?  The  very  wisest  of  Papal  cham- 
pions, endeavoring  to  reconcile  Papal  infallibility  with 
five  centuries  of  Papal  teaching  that  robbery  is  right 
and  murder  meritorious,  have  only  this  apology  to  offer : 
Do  not  judge  the  past  by  the  present.  Those  Middle 
Ages  were  cruel  and  the  Popes  were  simply  children  of 
their  time.  How  pitiable  a  plea !  It  avails  for  Protes- 
tantism, for,  bloody  as  its  record,  too,  has  been,  Protes- 
tantism has  repented,  and  acknowledged  that  in  perse- 
cuting for  conscience  sake,  it  committed  the  worst  of 
sins.  But  an  infallible  Papacy  that  pretends  to  be 
divinely   safeguarded    from   ever   officially   teaching  bad 


46  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

morality, — how  can  it  be  helped  by  such  an  argument? 
If  the  Papacy  has  taught  corruption  only  once,  not  to 
speak  of  half  a  thousand  years  of  it,  all  is  over  with 
infallibility.  Infallibility  is  a  transcendental  prerogative, 
absolutely  independent  of  times  and  seasons  and  all 
other  sublunary  circumstances ;  and  it  is  surely  a  curious 
fashion  of  mind  that  bids  us  excuse  the  most  evident 
lapses  of  a  supposed  infallibility  for  a  reason  with  which 
a  true  infallibility,  by  its  very  nature  and  essence,  can 
have  no  relation  whatever.  The  sole  escape  from  this 
grave  conclusion  is  in  upholding  the  principles  of  the 
Inquisition,  in  canonizing  pillage,  sanctifying  torture,  and 
esteeming  the  roasting  flesh  of  men  who  die  for  con- 
science a  sweet  savor  unto  Jesus.  This,  a  power  greater 
than  papacies  and  principalities  has  rejected  forever,  the 
power  of  Providentially  directed  history,  the  power  of 
maturing  conscience,  the  power  of  those  ideals  of  the 
Son  of  God,  which  men,  having  once  grown  into  the 
comprehension  of  them,  can  never  cast  away. 

X 

Duty  of  Seeking   Truth 

Your  Holiness: 

I  have  not,  I  assure  you,  gone  into  this  matter  of  per- 
secution, nor  shall  I  take  up  other  topics  in  succeeding 
letters,  either  because  I  find  delight  in  turning  over  the 
foul  waste-heaps  of  history,  or  because  I  desire  to  arouse 
the  bigotry  of  stupid  and  malicious  men.     Bigotry  is  the 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  47 

most  hideous  exhibition  that  human  conduct  affords,  and 
I  doubt  whether  certain  anti-Catholic  forms  of  it  have 
ever  been  surpassed  for  malignity.  Intelligent  non- 
Catholics  will  not  be  moved  to  bigotry  by  anything  that 
I  have  written  or  shall  write.  They  are  aware  that  the 
Papacy  and  Catholicism  are  not  identical.  They  know 
that  Catholicism  is  fruitful  in  sanctity,  charity,  and 
heroism.  They  need  not  be  reminded  that  the  Catholic 
laity  around  them  detest  as  heartily  as  other  men,  intol- 
erance and  persecution.  All  forms  of  Christian  faith 
have  produced  Christ-like  characters,  Catholicism  per- 
haps more  than  all  other  forms  combined.  Bitterness, 
then,  against  Catholicism  as  a  spiritual  religion,  no  man, 
I  trust,  will  take  into  his  soul  from  these  words  of  mine. 
Nothing  could  do  more  to  frustrate  my  whole  purpose 
than  to  divert  these  pages  into  the  service  of  intoler- 
ance.    Let  me  again  declare  what  this  purpose  is. 

The  Catholic  church  has  reached  a  crisis  in  comparison 
with  which  every  peril  of  her  past  history  was  insignifi- 
cant. She  is  now  in  conflict  with  ideas.  She  is  now 
striving  to  justify  herself  in  the  face  of  science.  She  is 
now  called  to  account  before  the  stern  tribunal  of  peoples 
who  have  grown  to  intellectual  and  ethical  maturity. 
She  is  now  wrestling  with  the  problems  of  that  insistent 
Freedom,  that  vast  Liberty,  that  militant  Democracy, 
that  sovereign  Individuality,  into  which  the  modern 
world  has  grown.  To  adopt  your  own  word,  O  Roman 
Pontiff,  she  is  in  the  storm  and  stress  of  conflict  with 
Modernism.     Never,  let  me  repeat,  has  the  world  gone 


48  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

back  over  traversed  paths  of  progress.  Never  has  his- 
tory permanently  reversed  its  course.  Onward,  onward, 
irresistibly  swing  the  marching  hosts  of  men.  Thus  they 
fulfil  their  destiny.  Thus  God  has  made  provision  for 
their  education.  Thus  must  the  germs  of  higher  life 
grow  into  richer  fruit.  The  past  must  teach  the  present, 
but  so  teach  it  that  it  may  grow  away  from  the  past  to  a 
nobler  future.  This  is  life;  this  is  progress;  and  only 
in  life  and  progress  is  there  righteousness  and  truth. 

Your  letter  on  modernism  defies  this  universal  law. 
You  would  arrest  the  whole  movement  of  the  modern 
spirit.  You  would  put  the  patristic  or  the  medieval 
age  as  a  bit  into  the  mouth  of  this  our  time  and  check 
its  course,  bring  it  to  full  stop,  and,  with  what  strength 
is  in  you,  pull  it  backward  past  milestones  we  had  already 
left  behind.  You  have  proclaimed  to  the  world  that 
Catholicism  is  not  "modern,"  that  its  face  is  reversed, 
that  it  must  and  shall  coerce  the  twentieth  century  within 
the  forms,  ideas,  and  categories  of  the  thirteenth. 

It  is  a  crisis  of  life  and  death,  Holy  Father.  Every 
religious  man,  every  man  to  whom  Catholicism  has  ever 
been  dear — and  how  dear  it  has  been  indeed  to  the  hearts 
of  the  modernists  you  anathematize !— must  regard  it 
with  consuming  solicitude,  for  scarcely  is  there  a  greater 
peril  to  souls  than  the  decline  and  collapse  of  any  ven- 
erable religious  system.  Catholicism's  decline  is  now  far 
advanced.  Its  collapse  is  absolutely  certain  unless  it 
cuts  off  those  antagonisms  and  irreconcilabilities  to  mod- 
ern civilization  which  have  been  the  cause  of  its  wide- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  49 

spread  rejection.  Frank  men  are  needed,  candid  speech 
is  needed,  to  declare  to  the  rulers  of  the  Church  what 
these  antagonisms  are,  and  how  deep  the  knife  must  be 
driven  to  remove  them. 

But  the  rulers  of  the  Church  will  pay  no  heed;  and  it 
is  hardly  more  than  as  a  matter  of  form  that  in  these 
letters   I   address  them,   or  you,   the  greatest  of  them. 
My  primary  purpose  is  to  do  a  little  to  educate  priests 
and  laity.     If  I  can  emancipate  some  among  them  from 
superstition  and  general  mental  enslavement ;  if  I  can 
help  them  against  the  day  wherein  they  candidly  examine 
the    foundations    of    their   beliefs,    to    see    that    whether 
Papacies  must   fall  or  dogmas  change,  Christ  and  the 
Christ-life  are  immortal;  if  I  can  teach  them  the  dis- 
honor of  stubborn  prejudice  and  the  beauty  of  candid 
Truth,  I  shall  have  reached  the  full  measure  of  my  hope. 
It  is  unfortunately  likely,  indeed,  that  ere  this  result  be 
reached  I  shall  have  caused  to  many  distress,  agitation, 
and    perhaps    something   which    they    fancy    is    despair. 
This  is  inexpressibly  sorrowful,  and  long  withholds  the 
words  which  conscientious  men  believe  ought  to  be,  and 
sometime  must  be   spoken.      But   when   has  growth   in 
sincerity  not  been  attended  with  anguish?     What  cause 
has   inflicted   so  many   pangs   of  martyrdom  as   Truth? 
Did   not   Christ's  own  message   demand   from   his   first 
disciples  departure  from  venerable  ways,  torment  of  mind, 
and  suffering  of  soul  ?    Not  otherwise  can  we  grow ;  not 
otherwise  may  we  be  worthy  to  join  the  disciples  and 
soldiers  of  Truth. 


50  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

This,  however,  remains  as  a  consolation  to  those  who 
in  these  crises  of  religious  experience  have  seen  many 
another  consolation  pass  away,  that  they  would  not 
change  their  new  illumination  of  spirit  for  all  that  the 
world  can  give.  To  confront  Truth  face  to  face ;  to 
have  outgrown  a  narrow  and  falsifying  education ;  to 
have  ceased  the  dishonorable  processes  of  self-sophistica- 
tion ;  to  feel  no  longer  bound  to  apologize  for  infamy  or 
to  palliate  superstition ; — this  brings  with  it  a  sense  of 
spiritual  dignity  and  of  intellectual  honor,  nobler  and 
loftier  than  anything  they  have  lost.  For  what  is  it  to 
have  cast  away  the  excesses  and  the  degradations  of 
religion  but  to  have  arrived  at  the  pure  essence  of  reli- 
gion undefiled?  What  is  it  to  find  ourselves  obliged  to 
condemn  worldly  prelacies  and  tyrannical  Curias,  but 
to  know  that  we  are  nearer  to  the  exacting  Ideals  that  of 
old  were  preached  in  Galilee?  Through  the  cross  to  the 
Light !  and  no  man  who  has  gone  wayfaring  forth  to 
seek  the  light  has  regretted  that  he  had  to  bear  a  cross 
to  find  it. 

XI 

Has   the  Papacy   Changed  Its  Attitude   Toward  Free- 
dom  of   Conscience? 

Your  Holiness: 

It  would  be  ungracious  to  recall  the  past  attitude  of 
the  Papacy  toward  freedom  of  conscience,  if  the  Papacy 
had  repented  of  that  attitude,  had  disavowed  and  radi- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  5 1 

cally  changed  it.  The  world  indeed  would  hardly  credit 
Rome's  repentance  unless  it  gave  forth  some  official  and 
explicit  declaration  that  it  was  ashamed  of  the  blood  upon 
its  pontifical  robes,  and  that  henceforth  it  would  recog- 
nize and  respect  religious  liberty,  not  as  an  expedient 
merely,  but  as  a  principle  and  a  truth.  If  ever  retraction 
and  apology  be  required  of  any  institution,  assuredly  it 
is  required  of  that  one,  the  steps  to  whose  throne  of 
world-wide  power  are  built  of  the  bones  of  murdered  men. 
Blood-guiltiness  calls  for  avowed  sorrow  and  express  con- 
trition, and  until  Rome  shall  speak  of  its  Inquisition  in 
the  accents  of  contrition,  the  world  will  not  forget  the 
past. 

But  Rome  has  not  repented.  It  has  given  not  only 
no  proof  but  no  sign  that  it  has  changed.  Worse  than 
that,  its  consistent  policy  down  to  and  including  your 
own  pontificate,  has  furnished  evidence  unmistakable  that 
it  has  no  intention  of  changing,  that  it  resents  all  sug- 
gestion of  change,  and  that  it  holds  today  the  principle 
of  persecution  as  firmly  as  when  it  conferred  on  Tor- 
quemada  authority  to  murder.  Not  until  liberty  of  con- 
science is  recognized  in  principle  is  there  any  safeguard 
against  intolerance ;  not  until  there  is  an  end  to  meas- 
ures of  persecution  which  now  stop  short  of  the  prison 
and  the  stake  only  apparently,  because  not  the  will  but  the 
power  to  inflict  these  is  lacking,  will  mankind  feel  secure 
in  contemplating  a  possible  re-ascendancy  of  Rome.  But 
Rome  to  this  day  officially  and  uncompromisingly  rejects 
liberty  of  conscience  as  a  principle.    Rome  to  this  day  is 


52  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

employing  what  means  it  dares  to  subvert  that  principle 
and  to  show  its  contempt  for  it. 

Instances  in  proof  of  this  assertion — what  proof  in- 
deed does  it  require? — I  need  not  multiply,  but  I  will 
give  a  few.  As  late  as  1794  the  Papacy  condemned  a 
position  of  the  Synod  of  Pistoia  which  declared  that  the 
Church  should  inflict  none  but  spiritual  punishments. 
In  1805  Pius  VII,  in  an  instruction  to  the  Papal  Nuncio 
at  Vienna,  recalls  Innocent  Ill's  iniquitous  laws  against 
heretics,  and  regrets  that  the  time  is  so  evil  that  they 
cannot  any  longer  be  carried  out.  Both  Gregory  XVI 
and  Pius  IX  bitterly  censured,  one  the  Belgian  consti- 
tution of  1832,  and  the  other  the  Austrian  constitution  of 
1868,  for  the  insertions  of  provisions  allowing  liberty  of 
worship.  Gregory  XVI  in  the  Mirari  vos  of  August  15, 
1832,  delivers  himself  of  an  onslaught  against  "that  vil- 
lainous notion  (pravam  Mam  notioncm)  which  has  be- 
come prevalent  owing  to  the  deceit  of  wicked  men 
(improborum  frande),  that  a  man  can  obtain  eternal 
salvation  in  any  faith  if  only  his  morals  are  upright  and 
pure."  This  Gregory  styles  "errorem  exitiosissimiim," 
"a  most  deadly  error",  and  cites  against  it  this  damnatory 
clause  of  the  Athanasian  Creed :  "It  is  beyond  doubt 
that  whoso  holds  not  the  Catholic  faith  entire  and  in- 
violate will  eternally  perish."  Pope  Gregory  continues : 
"From  this  filthy  source  of  indifferentism  flows  that  ab- 
surd and  false  idea,  or  rather  madness  (deliramentum) 
that  every  man's  liberty  of  conscience  must  be  main- 
tained and  vindicated.     The  highway  to  this  pestilential 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  53 

error  (pestilentissimo  crrori)  has  been  prepared  by  that 
full  and  immoderate  freedom  of  opinion  which  is  now 
working  widespread  ruin  both  in  the  civil  and  religious 
world".  This  freedom  he  characterizes  as  "Pestis  reipub- 
lica  prce  qualibet  capitalior" ,  "the  worst  pest  that  afflicts 
the  state".  "It  is  well  known",  he  writes,  "that  nations 
which  have  been  illustrious  for  wealth,  dominion  and 
glorious  achievement  have  fallen  because  of  this  one  evil, 
unrestrained  liberty  of  ideas,  freedom  of  speech  and  itch 
for  revolutionary  novelty"  (Civitates — hoc  uno  malo  con- 
cidisse,  libertate  immodcrata  opinionum,  licentia  cotv- 
cionum,  rerum  novandarum  cupiditate).  One  of  the 
chief  sources  of  this  mischief  is  "the  liberty  of  book- 
publishing,  that  detestable  liberty  that  can  never  be  exe- 
crated enough"  (deterrima  ilia  ac  nunquam  satis  exsc- 
cranda  et  detcstabilis  libertas  artis  librarian) . 

The  successor  of  Gregory  XVI,  Pius  IX,  condemns  in 
his  famous  Syllabus  of  1864  the  following  proposition, 
which  consequently  must  be  refuted  in  every  Catholic 
theological  school,  and  rejected  by  such  Catholics  as  fol- 
low the  Papacy  blindfolded :  "Every  man  is  free  to 
embrace  and  profess  the  religion  which  his  reason  tells 
him  is  true".  ("Liberum  cuique  homini  est  cam  amplccti 
ct  proiiteri  religioncm  quam  rationis  lumiiic  quis  ductus 
vcram  putavcrit" . — Prop.  15.)  The  same  Syllabus  con- 
demns also  the  following  propositions :  "The  Church 
has  not  the  power  of  inflicting  violence,  nor  any  temporal 
power,  direct  or  indirect".  ("Ecclesia  vis  infer endec 
potestatem  non  habet,  neque  potestatem  idlam  tcmporalem 


54  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

directam  vel  indircctam".  Prop.  24.)  "In  our  age  it  is 
no  longer  fitting  that  the  Catholic  religion  should  be 
the  sole  religion  of  the  state,  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
other  faiths"  (ceteris  quib  use  unique  cultibus  exclnsis. 
Prop.  yy).  "Therefore  it  is  praiseworthy  that  it  is  by 
law  provided  in  certain  Catholic  countries  that  immi- 
grants shall  enjoy  the  public  exercise  of  their  own  re- 
ligion". ("Hine  laudabiliter  in  quibusdam  Catholici 
nominis  regionibus  lege  cautum  est  ut  hominibus  illuc 
immigrantibus  liceat  publicum  proprii  cujnsque  cultus 
exercitium  habere".  Prop.  78.)  If  the  utterances  of  an 
institution  are  to  be  read  in  the  light  of  its  history,  what 
shall  be  our  judgments  of  these  condemnations  uttered 
in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  by  a  Papacy  that 
for  five  centuries  enforced  them  by  robbery  and  murder? 
What  can  be  the  judgment  of  any  open-minded  man  but 
this,  that  though  mankind  will  no  longer  tolerate  the 
Inquisition  in  practice,  the  Papacy  still  stands  committed 
to  the  Inquisition  in  principle?  Is  it  not  only  by  con- 
temptible sophistry  and  dishonorable  subterfuge — of 
which  of  a  verity  we  have  had  enough  in  our  orthodox 
commentaries  on  the  Syllabus — that  any  man  can  main- 
tain that  the  Papacy  is  not  opposed  to  the  highest  right 
of  the  human  soul,  and  the  most  fundamental  principle 
of  modern  civilization?  Efforts  indeed  have  been  made 
at  sundry  times  by  eminent  Catholics  to  combine  perfect 
loyalty  to  the  Papal  See  with  the  recognition  of  liberty 
of  conscience,  but  these  efforts  have  lamentably  failed. 
Montalambert  in  his  splendid  speech  at  the  Malines  con- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  55 

gress  declared,  thoroughgoing  Catholic  and  Papal  cham- 
pion though  he  was,  that  the  time  had  come  for  a  frank 
acknowledgment  of  the  principle  of  religious  freedom. 
But  Montalambert  died  broken-hearted  under  Pius  IX's 
condemnation.  Bishop  von  Ketteler,  of  Mayence,  wrote 
in  1862  that  the  Church  is  totally  opposed  to  inflicting 
violence  upon  heretics.  Two  years  later  appeared  the 
Syllabus,  and  von  Ketteler,  striving  pitiably  to  eat  his 
words,  made  of  himself  a  spectacle  that  no  candid  man 
can  respect.  If  at  this  very  hour  a  professor  in  any 
Catholic  University  or  Seminary  in  the  world  should 
teach  the  righteousness  of  the  principle  of  toleration,  he 
would  be  deposed  as  soon  as  the  news  of  his  apostasy 
arrived  in  Rome.  Let  us  have  done  with  hypocrisy. 
Let  us  cease  our  lies.  Rome  has  never  repented  of  its 
bloodshedding,  but  has  gloried  in  it,  and  has  flung  into 
the  teeth  of  our  own  age  the  assertion  of  its  right  to 
punish  and  to  persecute  men  who  worship  Deity  at  altars 
other  than  her  own.  Did  not  Pius  IX,  despite  the  pro- 
tests of  liberal  Catholics,  canonize  Peter  Arbues,  the 
Inquisitor-General  of  Aragon,  who  was  killed  in  1485 
by  men  who  had  been  made  desperate  by  his  cruelty? 
Is  not  Pius  V  a  saint?  that  gloomy  bigot  who  ordered 
the  Inquisition  to  be  established  even  on  the  vessels  of 
the  fleet  which  fought  against  the  Turks?  Was  not  the 
world  scandalized  by  the  Inquisition  of  the  Papal  States 
even  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the 
Inquisitor-General  Bertolotti  in  1841,  and  Airaldi  in 
1856,  required  under  penalty   of  excommunication   that 


56  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

all  who  knew  of  offenses  against  ecclesiastical  law  should 
reveal  them  to  the  Holy  Office?  According  to  this  de- 
cree a  servant-girl  might  be  excommunicated  if,  having 
observed  that  her  employer  ate  meat  on  a  fast-day,  she 
did  not  forthwith  run  to  the  Inquisitors  and  inform  them 
of  his  iniquity.  Do  not  the  standard  modern  works  of 
reference  in  Canon  Law  still  contain  the  butcher's  code 
of  an  Innocent  III  or  a  Gregory  IX,  as  de  jure,  if  not  de 
facto,  in  force?  Read,  for  example,  Ferrari's  Bibliotheca 
Juris  Canonici.  There  you  will  find  such  propositions 
as  the  following:  "Civil  authorities,  though  strictly  for- 
bidden to  examine  the  records  of  Inquisitorial  trials, 
must  execute  under  pain  of  excommunication  the  Inqui- 
sition's sentence".  "Heretics  must  be  denounced  to  the 
Inquisition  under  pain  of  excommunication".  "Heretics 
suffer  confiscation  of  their  property  from  the  day  on 
which  they  fall  into  heresy  (a  die  commissi  criminis)". 
"Heretical  fathers  lose  paternal  authority  over  their  chil- 
dren". "Impenitent  heretics  are  to  be  burned:  this  is 
the  common  opinion  of  the  learned  (sic  communis  sen- 
tentia  doctorum)". 

But  let  us  end  this  sickening,  this  astounding  story. 
We  have  given  enough  of  it  to  make  clear  that  the 
Papacy  still  thinks  that  the  Inquisition  is  what  the  Papal 
organ,  La  Civilta  Cattolica,  styled  it  in  1855,  "a  sublime 
spectacle  of  social  perfection."  We  have  given  enough 
of  it  to  perceive  that  the  proposition  of  Martin  Luther 
condemned  by  Leo  X,  "To  burn  heretics  is  against  spirit- 
ual charity",  is  still  dangerously   liberal.     Unrepentant 


LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS  57 

and  unreformed,  the  Papacy  stands  before  the  modern 
world  with  the  millstone  of  the  Inquisition  about  its  neck. 
Taking  back  nothing,  apologizing  for  nothing  in  its 
blood-red  past,  the  Papacy  dares  to  ask  the  suffrage  and 
allegiance  of  civilized  men.  How  little,  Sovereign 
Pontiff,  you,  your  curalists,  and  your  canonists,  under- 
stand of  that  passionate  ardor  with  which  the  world 
today  maintains,  and  of  that  reverent  solicitude  with 
which  it  respects,  the  rights  of  conscience!  How  little 
you  understand  of  the  scorn  with  which  intelligent  men 
regard  the  classic  argument  of  your  schools  against  free- 
dom of  worship !  the  argument,  namely,  that  unless  so- 
ciety persecutes  the  heretic,  it  puts  itself  in  the  false 
position  of  placing  truth  and  error  upon  equal  terms. 
As  though,  forsooth,  the  discerning  of  the  one  true 
religion — to  say  nothing  of  the  vast  assumption  that 
only  one  is  true — were  a  self-evident  matter!  As 
though  truth  and  error  could  ever  be  on  equal  terms ! 
As  though  the  human  intellect  had  no  capacity  of  de- 
tecting error  and  attaining  to  truth !  As  though  not  the 
vital  growth  of  mind  but  the  flames  of  the  Inquisition 
were  God's  instrument  of  spiritual  education !  As  though 
the  Founder  of  Christianity  had  ever  taught  us  a  baffling 
metaphysics,  and  obliged  us  to  believe  it  under  penalty 
of  confiscation,  the  durus  career,  and  the  stake ! 

No,  Sovereign  Pontiff,  the  children  of  freedom  in  this 
age  will  not  even  listen  to  the  arguments  for  your  blood- 
begotten  thesis.  You  will  gain  their  attention  only  when 
you  have  expressly  and  officially  renounced  the  teaching, 


58  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

and  the  deeds  that  followed  from  it,  which  have  laid  a 
track  of  cruelty  across  the  history  of  Christianity.  This 
you  will  not ;  this,  according  to  traditional  Papal  theology, 
you  cannot  do.  Then  bid  farewell  to  the  nations  that 
have  revolted  against  Rome.  They  will  never  return. 
For  they  hold  with  Gerson :  "Papa  non  est  supra  Dei 
Evangelium" ,  "The  Pope  is  not  above  the  Gospel  of 
God" ;  and  with  Gerson  they  trust  that  "in  the  faith  of 
Christ  a  man  can  save  his  soul  though  in  the  whole 
world  not  a  Pope  could  be  found." 

XII 

The  Papacy  and  Representative   Government 

Your  Holiness  : 

In  this  endeavor  of  mine  to  inform  you  why  the  en- 
lightened nations  of  today  reject  the  Papacy,  and  what 
deep-seated  changes  the  Papacy  must  undergo  before  the 
men  of  our  time  will  give  it  the  favor  of  their  attention, 
I  have  pointed  out  that  the  first  principle  of  our  civiliza- 
tion, freedom  of  conscience,  is  violated  and  despised  by 
the  official  teaching  of  your  See.  I  come  now  to  the 
second  great  principle  of  civilized  society,  which  is  that 
non-representative  autocracies  are  tyrannical,  and  repre- 
sentative government  alone  is  right  and  just.  This  sec- 
ond article  in  the  political  and  social  creed  of  our  time 
has,  like  the  first,  been  gained  at  the  cost  of  struggle, 
suffering,  and  unnumbered  heroic  lives.  Slavery,  feudal- 
ism and  autocratic  monarchy  have  had  their  history,  a 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  59 

long,  humiliating  and  disastrous  history.  Based  upon 
the  idea  that  almost  the  entire  interest  of  the  state  was 
concentrated  about  the  lord,  the  baron  or  the  king,  they 
utterly  ignored  the  common  man  as  an  independent  indi- 
viduality, vested  with  the  rights  of  free  personal  co- 
operation in  the  government,  and  as  possessing  himself 
a  kind  of  kingship  inasmuch  as  he  is  man.  The  sovereign 
individuality  of  every  man  has  no  place  in  the  philosophy 
of  autocracy.  Were  an  autocracy  to  recognize  it,  it 
would  cease  to  be  an  autocracy.  The  slave  was  only  a 
chattel ;  the  feudal  serf  was  merely  adscriptus  glebes,  a 
thing  attached  to  the  soil ;  the  subject  of  a  non-repre- 
sentative monarchy  is  perinde  cadaver,  like  a  corpse. 

Slowly,  with  blind  gropings  and  infinite  pain,  the 
immortal  spirit  of  man  struggled  through  the  dead  weight 
of  these  tyrannies,  and  stood  at  last  in  the  chamber  of 
kings  to  demand  that  man,  despite  his  poverty  or  lowli- 
ness or  illiteracy,  and  solely  because  of  his  manhood 
received  from  God,  be  admitted  into  a  governing  fellow- 
ship with  lords  and  princes  and  crowned  heads  in  such 
matters  as  pertained  to  the  common  burdens  and  the 
common  good.  Thus  was  born  Democracy;  thus  per- 
ished despotism.  Thus  began  to  vanish  from  the  earth 
the  political  philosophy  which  regarded  man  as  a  thing, 
an  impersonal  unit,  an  item  on  the  military  and  tax-lists 
of  kings.  Thus  rose  to  power  that  other  philosophy, 
which  is  to  prevail  forever,  that  not  only  for  religion  but 
for  governments,  man  has  an  immortal  soul,  a  free  spirit, 
and  divine  rights.     Our  own  American  nationality  was 


60  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

called  to  being  by  the  cry:  "Non-representative  gov- 
ernment is  tyranny,"  which  is  only  a  summary  expres- 
sion of  the  whole  gospel  of  Democracy,  namely,  that  free 
personalities  should  be  governed  under  freedom,  and 
that  it  is  an  intolerable  indignity  that  laws  should  be 
imposed  on  freemen  without  their  cooperation  or  consent. 

This  world-regenerating  idea,  Democracy,  is,  as  it  were, 
worshipped  by  this  modern  age.  There  is  no  measuring 
the  fervor  of  the  loyalty  with  which  we  hold  it  There 
is  no  bound  or  limit  to  the  sacrifices  we  would  make  for 
it.  There  is  no  estimating  the  scorn  and  anger  with 
which  we  should  regard  any  man,  system,  or  institution 
that  would  subvert  or  weaken  it.  Has  the  Papacy  a 
message  for  our  time?  Then  do  we  demand  that  the 
Papacy  give  us  an  accounting  of  its  attitude  towards 
Democracy,  towards  representative  government,  towards 
that  sense  of  popular  rights  and  national  self-respect 
which  Liberty,  the  mistress  of  the  modern  world,  has 
taught  us. 

Lamentable,  truly,  is  the  plight  of  the  Papacy  before 
this  demand  of  Democracy,  a  demand  that  must  be  satis- 
factorily met  before  Catholicism  can  advance  one  step 
among  civilized  men.  The  Papacy  and  Democracy !  the 
Italian  Curia  and  representative  government !  the  Roman 
autocracy  and  Freedom !  How  grotesque  the  juxtapo- 
sition  !  How  incongruous  an  association  of'ideas  !  Before 
the  insistent  Liberty  of  today,  before  the  sovereign  dig- 
nity of  emancipated  Individuality,  the  Papal  court  stands 
as  practically  the  last  autocracy  left  on  earth.    Russia  has 


LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS  6l 

established  a  Parliament.  The  Grand  Turk,  even,  has 
granted  a  constitutional  government  to  his  people.  But 
the  Papacy  treats  with  contempt  every  suggestion  that 
American,  English,  French  and  German  freemen  should, 
in  the  sphere  of  ecclesiastical  government,  be  allowed  the 
privileges  of  a  moujik  or  a  Mussulman. 

Your  Papal  See,  Sovereign  Pontiff,  is  the  most  exclu- 
sive despotism,  the  most  absolute  autocracy,  the  most 
humiliating  tyranny,  that  still  defies  public  opinion  and 
outrages  the  conscience  of  mankind.  Under  the  rules  of 
that  tyranny  you  may  expect  the  world  to  return  only 
when  the  world  shall  have  gone  universally  insane,  and 
when  its  present  passion  for  Liberty  shall  have  appeared 
to  it  as  but  a  drunken  dream.  If  any  anger  is  ever  justi- 
fied, it  is  the  anger  of  a  freeman  upon  whose  neck  presses 
the  heel  of  a  scoffing  despotism.  If  ever  we  may  give 
way  to  a  bitter  temper,  it  is  when  a  foreign  tyrant  sends 
to  our  free  shores  the  message  in  the  name  of  God 
Almighty,  that  we  are  slaves.  If  ever  we  may  rightly 
speak  in  the  heat  of  indignation  it  is  when  our  self- 
respect  is  violated  by  a  cabal  of  irresponsible  Italians, 
who  hate  our  institutions,  gird  at  our  freedom,  and  scorn 
the  courteous  petitions  we  address  to  them. 

If  this  language  is  severe,  it  is  high  time  that  some 
one  spoke  it.  Too  long  has  the  resentment  against 
Italianism  found  no  other  utterance  than  the  whisperings 
of  timidity.  Too  long  has  the  Papal  Curia  had  its  pride 
inflated  and  its  lust  for  domination  gratified  by  the  adula- 
tion  of  subservient   devotees,   and   the   "All's   well"   of 


62  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

flunkey  prelates.  It  is  time  that  some  honest  man  spoke 
out.  It  is  time  that  our  nation's  watchword,  "Non-rep- 
resentative government  is  tyranny",  were  addressed  to 
that  Papacy  which  rules  us  today  in  the  form  and  spirit 
of  the  all-absorbing  theocracy  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
proper  persons  to  utter  this  warning  to  Rome  are,  of 
course,  our  Bishops.  Our  Bishops !  The  episcopate  was 
a  great  office  once.  Men  of  independence  filled  it;  men 
zealous  in  safeguarding  the  right  of  home-rule ;  men 
who  feared  not  to  bid  Rome  take  care  when  Rome 
encroached  upon  their  province.  But  now !  There  is 
not  a  sadder  proof  of  the  decline  of  the  ancient  spirit 
beneath  the  blight  of  an  almighty  Papacy,  than  the  pres- 
ent corps  of  prelates  who  claim  to  be  successors  of  the 
Apostles.  Despotism  always  produces  degradation  of 
character.  Tyranny  always  selects  pliable  men  as  its 
instruments  and  officials.  And  of  all  the  deplorable  in- 
stances in  history  to  bear  out  these  propositions  the  pres- 
ent manner  of  acting  of  the  bishops,  let  us  say  of  France 
and  the  United  States,  is  one  of  the  most  striking,  one  of 
the  most  shameful.  Not  from  such  men  will  any  manly 
protest  come ;  not  from  men  who  kiss  the  Holy  Father's 
slipper,  put  the  contributions  of  their  poor  in  the  Holy 
Father's  hand,  and  run  home  to  tell  how  paternally  the 
Holy  Father  received  them.  Not  from  men  whose  idea 
of  scholarship  is  how  to  write  a  dispensation  and  go 
through  the  intricate  business  of  pontifical  ceremonial, 
Not  from  men  who  shut  themselves  up  in  their  houses  and 
take  no  part  in  the  civic  and  national  discussion  and  life 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  63 

about  them.  From  these  no  independence,  no  exhibition 
of  sturdy  character.  Wherefore  it  remains  for  men  of 
humbler  station,  whose  soul  is  still  able  to  feel  indigna- 
tion against  consecrated  wrong,  it  remains  for  these,  it 
is  forced  upon  these,  to  become  spokesmen  of  indepen- 
dence before  the  autocracy  of  Rome. 

XIII 

Italian  Absolutism 

Your  Holiness: 

Were  a  despotism  the  mildest  and  most  beneficent  in 
the  world,  it  would  be  intolerable  to  men  of  spirit  and 
intelligence.  For,  however  considerate  be  its  treatment 
of  its  subjects,  the  principle  upon  which  it  rests,  the 
political  philosophy  which  it  embodies,  are  an  insult  to 
developed  human  nature.  There  may  be  no  starvation 
of  body  under  a  kindly  tyranny,  but  there  is  bound  to 
be  a  starvation  of  soul.  Men  may  feel  no  inclination  to 
resent  it  on  the  ground  of  physical  suffering,  but  as  men 
live  not  by  bread  alone,  they  must  resent  it  in  behalf  of 
the  loftier  ideals  and  higher  satisfactions  of  which  it 
deprives  them.  Men  will  be  ruled  no  longer  by  absentee 
autocrats  and  alien  legislators.  It  would  then  matter 
little  if  your  Curia  were  the  wisest  and  most  indulgent 
bureaucracy  in  the  world;  the  modern  age  would  reject 
it,  not,  in  our  supposition,  for  its  practical  operation,  but 
for  its  despotic  principle  and  constitution.  For  it  is 
wholly   unrepresentative ;   it   is   utterly    foreign   to   prac- 


64  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

tically  every  country  but  Italy.  To  every  other  nation  on 
earth  it  is  an  exclusive  corporation,  it  is  an  alien  rule, 
it  is  a  type  of  government  only  one  remove  from  slavery, 
it  is  an  example  of  that  irresponsible  power  which  civile 
zation  in  its  evolution  towards  democracy  has  outgrown 
and  must  cast  aside.  Italians  alone  to  pass  supreme 
judgment  upon  our  concerns ;  Italians  alone  to  revise 
every  important  detail  of  ecclesiastical  policy ;  Italians 
alone  to  suggest  or  approve  whatever  legislation  we 
frame  for  our  local  needs ;  Italians  alone  as  Delegates, 
dubbed  "Apostolic"  in  nearly  every  country  in  the  world ; 
Italians  and  Italianism  everywhere  interfering,  every- 
where supreme!  If  you  fancy,  Sovereign  Pontiff,  that 
our  self-respect  can  rest  content  in  presence  of  such  a 
situation,  you  have  not  begun  to  know  democracy,  you 
have  never  understood  a  modern  nation's  sense  of  self- 
respect  and  independence. 

After  all,  why  are  Italians  thus  favored?  Are  they 
divinely  called  to  the  hegemony  of  the  world,  as  Israel 
conceived  itself  to  be?  Some  ultra-Papists  may  think 
so,  but  ultra-Papists  have  long  since  ceased  to  have  the 
slightest  influence  in  the  intellectual  domain.  Have 
Italians  made  of  their  monopoly  such  a  success  as  would 
lead  all  other  nations  to  yield  preeminence  to  them? 
Far  from  it.  From  the  time  when  Catholicism  began 
to  be  overlaid  with  Italianism,  Catholicism  has  been 
steadily  following  the  path  of  decline.  It  is  moribund 
even  in  that  very  Italy  which  should  show  the  greatest 
benefits  of  the  present  regime,  if  it  conferred  any  bene' 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  65 

fits  at  all.    Is  it  that  the  members  of  the  Papal  camarilla 
are  so  free  from  pre-possessions  and  follow  so  compre- 
hensive a  philosophy  of  government  that  they  are  in  no 
clanger  of  conflicting  with  the  spirit,  temper  and  consti- 
tutions of  other  countries?     Quite   the  contrary  is   the 
case.     No  oligarchy  on  earth  is  so  stubbornly  devoted  to 
one   narrow   theory   of   administration   as   the   Curia   of 
Rome.     By  tradition,  by  study,  by  training,  by  an  abso- 
lutely    unequalled     obstructionism     to     adaptability     or 
change,  the  Vatican  politicians  are  not  only  monarchical 
but  autocratic,  not  only  autocratic  but  theocratic.     What 
reason  on  earth,  then,  justifies  their  supreme  control  of 
England  or  America?    No  reason  whatever.    Every  just 
consideration  drawn  either  from  common-sense  or  politi- 
cal  philosophy   leads   to   the   conclusion   that   the   Papal 
administration     is     anomalous,     monstrous,     intolerable. 
Neither  does  it  bear  the  least  resemblance  to  a  govern- 
ment founded  on  the  Gospel,  wherein  we  are  bidden  not 
to  dominate  but  to  serve,  not  to  impose  ourselves  upon 
others  but  to  consider  others  as  equally  deserving  with 
ourselves.     It    is    to   be    feared    that    the    Italian    Curia 
insists  upon  its  exclusive  character  in  order  to  feed  a 
lust   for  power   which,   despite   its   long   abiding   in   fat 
places,   is   still  voracious,   and   in   order   to   maintain   in 
defiance  of  historic  evolution  the  theocracy  of  Hildebrand 
and  Innocent  III. 

The  considerations  just  given  would  call,  we  say,  for 
a  mitigation  of  Italianism,  even  were  the  Papal  rule  the 
mildest  and  most  tolerant  conceivable.  But  when  we 
examine  its  practical  operation  we  are  forced  to  regard 


66  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

it  as  not  only  degrading  in  principle,  but  as  infamous  in 
effect;  we  are  constrained  to  adjudge  it  a  mischief,  an 
insult  and  a  menace  to  every  independent  state.  To  go 
no  further  back  than  the  present  and  the  immediately 
preceding  Pontificates,  we  discover  such  instances  of 
Rome's  tyranny,  outrage,  and  defiance  of  every  idea 
which  a  free  people  cherishes,  that  we  must  protest 
against  them,  or  else  confess  outright  that  we  are  either 
infants  incapable  of  self-respect,  or  slaves  who  never 
possessed  it. 

How  are  our  Bishops  appointed?  Three  names  are 
sent  to  Rome  by  a  small  group  of  the  priests  of  the  dio- 
cese, three  by  the  Bishops  of  the  province  in  which  the 
vacancy  has  occurred ;  and  in  case  an  Archbishop  is  to 
be  selected,  three  by  the  Archbishops  of  the  entire  coun- 
try. Too  limited  though  this  suffrage  is,  its  choice  should 
be,  on  every  principle  of  home-rule,  imperative  in  Rome. 
One  or  other  of  the  men  named  as  most  worthy  of  the 
office  should  be  given  it.  Any  other  method  of  selection 
a  free  people  cannot  understand.  Yet,  what  happens? 
When  the  names  are  submitted,  Rome's  governing  idea 
is,  not  whom  the  people  want — what  cares  Rome  for 
that? — but  whom  the  Curia  wants;  not  who  is  most  ac- 
ceptable to  those  whose  interests  are  immediately  con- 
cerned, but  who  is  most  acceptable  to  the  foreign  Court 
which  refuses  to  advance  any  man  not  in  sympathy  with 
its  secular,  despotic  and  theocratic  ideals.  The  will  of 
people,  priests  and  bishops  counts,  as  such,  for  nothing. 
Popular  will  in  democracy  is  supreme;  in  an  autocracy 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  67 

it  has  no  standing.  Hence  an  autocracy's  defiance ;  hence 
a  freeman's  revolt.  The  Papacy's  defiances  have  been  of 
late  increasing  in  number  and  gravity.  The  revolt,  if 
less  apparent,  is  inevitable. 

We  have  just  had  two  striking  illustrations  of  this  sort 
of  despotism  in  the  United  States.  In  the  later  instance, 
a  man  not  even  mentioned  in  the  lists  sent  to  Rome  by 
priests,  provincial  bishops,  or  the  body  of  archbishops, 
was  appointed  to  one  of  the  largest  archdioceses  in  this 
country.  Why  ?  Because  he  was  an  ultra-Roman ;  be- 
cause he  distinguished  himself  by  taking  sides  against 
his  country  on  more  than  one  occasion ;  because  he  had 
the  assistance  in  Rome  of  a  master  of  intrigue ;  because 
he  could  be  depended  upon  to  be  a  Roman  agent  here ; 
and  because,  abandoning  duties  which  in  very  decency 
should  have  kept  him  at  his  post  in  America,  he  spent 
six  months  in  Rome  to  supervise  the  progress  of  his 
abominable  ambition.  Overriding  the  express  will  of 
the  priests  he  was  to  direct  and  the  prelates  with  whom 
he  was  to  associate,  selected  by  a  foreign  cabal,  and  ap- 
pointed by  a  Pope  who  is  lending  himself  pitiably  to  their 
designs,  he  established  himself  in  a  position  which  in  the 
circumstances,  honor  and  conscience  should  have  bidden 
him  not  to  seek.  And  you  marvel,  Sovereign  Pontiff, 
that  free  people  do  not  submit  to  the  Papacy.  You  lift 
pious  hands  in  deprecation  of  the  growing  menace  of 
Satan  and  Free  Masonry! 

Let  us  pass  over  similar  examples.     Let  me  not  en- 
large, for  instance,  upon  the  fate  of  our  so-called  Catho- 


68  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

lie  University  at  Washington,  which  appears  to  be  now 
about  to  draw  its  last  breath,  principally  because  the 
curse  of  Italian  tyranny  and  Roman  intrigue  fell  upon 
its  cradle.  Neither  will  I  delay  upon^  the  affair  of 
"Americanism,"  in  which  Rome,  absolutely  without  con- 
sulting our  prelates,  proceeded  to  lecture  us  concerning 
certain  tendencies  which  were  dangerous,  forsooth ! 
Whether  from  Rome's  point  of  view  the  lecture  were 
needed  or  not,  a  decent  regard  for  a  justly  proud  and 
independent  people  should  have  counselled  the  getting  of 
advice  and  monition  from  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Nor  would  it  be  more  than  carrying  coals  to  New- 
castle to  refer  to  your  Holiness's  late  action  with  respect 
to  France.  There  the  world  looked  upon  the  spectacle 
of  the  most  eminent  laymen  in  the  French  Church  in 
vain  petitioning  you  to  check  your  unwarranted  severity 
in  meeting  the  Separation  Law.  There  the  world  was 
witness  to  your  angry  rejection  of  a  majority-vote  of 
the  French  Episcopate  requesting  you  to  give  a  fair  trial 
to  that  law.  Not  an  initiative  of  loyal  Catholic  French- 
men in  the  present  perils  of  the  Church  but  has  been 
crushed  by  the  Papacy's  iron  heel.  The  program  of  the 
"democratic"  priests  has  been  anathematized ;  the  con- 
gresses of  priests  for  discussing  the  problems  of  the  mod- 
ern apostolate  forbidden ;  the  efforts  of  the  seminarists 
for  cooperative  works  of  zeal  put  under  the  ban.  All 
these  were  projects  of  religion  attempted  by  men  who 
knew  the  need  of  them  for  their  country.  Every  one  of 
them  has  been  shattered  by  your  Italian  autocrats.    And 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  69 

should  any  man  who  was  born  free  and  who  intends  in 
spite  of  Papacies  to  die  free,  say  a  word  or  write  a  line 
of  protest,  we  are  treated  to  another  allocution  on  the 
evils  of  these  disobedient  days,  and  another  supplication 
to  the  Virgin  to  fulfil  the  office  which  the  Papacy  has 
grotesquely  assigned  to  her,  of  destroying  all  the  heresies 
of  the  world ! 

Sovereign  Pontiff,  in  intention  you  are  the  Servant  of 
Christ;  in  fact,  you  are  the  instrument  of  the  worst 
despotism  in  the  world.  You  would  make  the  nations 
obedient  to  the  Gospel ;  but  as  a  first  step  you  demand  of 
them  to  cast  away  their  inheritance  of  liberty  and  bend 
their  foreheads  to  the  dust  before  a  bureaucracy  of 
Italian  tyrants.  If  you  cannot  see  the  disaster  beneath 
these  contradictions,  you  are  blind  to  the  clearest  light  of 
our  time.  If  you  dare  not  abolish  the  massive  autocracy 
which  has  begotten  them,  you  are  recreant  to  the  first 
duty  of  a  shepherdship  of  charity. 

XIV 

Roman    Legates    and    Fathers    General 

Your  Holiness: 

The  autocratic  centralization  of  Rome  is  illustrated 
by  the  presence  of  Papal  legates  in  the  chief  countries 
of  the  world,  and  in  Rome  itself  by  the  existence  of 
Generals  and  ruling  senates  of  the  powerful  religious 
orders.  Of  these  two  sinister  examples  of  unreligious 
absolutism  it  is  my  purpose  to  say  a  few  plain  words. 


yO  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

An  apostolic,  or,  not  to  degrade  a  noble  word,  a  Papal 
legate  is  "quasi  persona  Papce,"  a  personal  representative 
of  the  Roman  Pontiff.  The  office  began  in  the  days  when 
the  Pope  conceived  himself  to  be  the  supreme  ruler  of 
the  earth,  whereof  the  nations  were  his  feudal  appendage, 
and  the  kings  his  vassals.  The  legates  were  court  func- 
tionaries to  see  that  all  feudal  obligations  were  duly  dis- 
charged to  the  great  lord  in  Rome.  They  were  the 
channels  through  which  flowed  Romeward,  money  and  se- 
cret reports,  and  which  conveyed  from  Rome  a  fairly  con- 
stant stream  of  excommunications,  interdicts,  depositions 
of  monarchs  and  alienations  of  kingdoms.  They  were 
furthermore  the  means  through  which  the  Papacy  de- 
stroyed local  church  government,  and  reduced  the  an- 
cient glorious  Episcopate  to  its  present  condition  of 
ordainers  of  priests,  blessers  of  chrism,  and  baptizers  of 
bells.  It  must  be  remembered  that  during  the  first  nine 
hundred  years  of  Catholicity,  Roman  tyranny  was  un- 
known. It  has  no  place  in  the  golden  age  of  Christian- 
ity. It  is  a  mischievous  modernism,  which,  however,  we 
are  quite  in  despair  of  ever  seeing  condemned.  The 
notion  that  the  Pope  must  do  everything,  and,  through 
a  "Legatus  a  latere",  be  everywhere,  could  never  have 
been  born  either  of  the  Gospel  or  of  primitive  Christian- 
ity. It  sprang  from  secularism,  theocracy,  and  the  False 
Decretals,  and  the  chains  with  which  it  holds  the  world 
in  bondage  were  in  great  measure  fastened  by  the  insti- 
tution of  Papal  delegates. 

Consider  the  noble  independence  of  the  ancient  Church. 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  71 

Let  us  for  a  moment  look  back  upon  it  that  our  tired 
souls  may  be  refreshed.  Every  year,  according  to  the 
decree  of  Nicaea,  two  synods  were  held  in  every  province 
to  legislate  for  local  necessities,  to  hear  complaints,  to 
remove  abuses.  These  meetings  were  absolutely  autono- 
mous and  the  men  who  composed  them  were  free.  No 
servile  committee  ran  to  Rome  to  gain  Italian  approval 
of  the  proposed  legislation  before  the  council  was  held  at 
all.  No  Papal  intruder  presided.  No  Papal  signature 
was  needed  to  give  effect  to  the  council's  acts.  These 
things  are  required  now ;  for  not  one  successor  of  the 
Apostles  today  may  open  his  mouth  till  Rome  nods ;  not 
one  of  these  our  bishops,  American-born,  and  citizens  of 
this  proud  Republic  though  they  are,  dares  to  take  an 
independent  step,  cannot  take  an  independent  step,  for 
all  his  steps  are  prescribed  to  the  fraction  of  an  inch  by 
Italian  politicians  oversea.  And  as  to  the  election  of 
bishops  in  the  pre-slavery  times  of  Catholicity,  let  us 
listen  to  a  description  of  the  manner  of  it  from  the  pen 
of  a  Pope  who,  though  he  reigned  too  early  to  be  an  auto- 
crat, stands  a  full  head  above  all  the  autocrats  that  have 
succeeded  him.  Leo  I  is  the  Pope,  and  the  words  we 
shall  quote  are  from  his  epistle  to  Anastasius,  bishop  of 
Thessalonica.  He  says :  "When  a  bishop  is  to  be  elected 
let  that  man  be  chosen  whom  people  and  clergy  con- 
cordantly  demand  (quern  cleri  plebisque  consensus  con- 
corditer  postularit) .  Should  there  be  a  divided  suffrage, 
let  the  metropolitan  decide,  and  his  choice  should  fall 
upon  the  man  who  is  most  illustrious  for  merit  and  intel- 


72  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

lect.  No  bishop  should  be  appointed  to  a  diocese  that 
does  not  want  him  and  has  not  asked  for  him  (tantum 
nt  nidlus  invitis  et  non  petentibus  ordinetur).  When  a 
metropolitan  dies,  the  bishops  of  the  province  should 
assemble  in  the  archepiscopal  city  so  that  they  may  be 
made  acquainted  with  the  wish  of  all  the  clergy  and  all 
the  people  (nt  omnium  clericorum  atque  omnium  civium 
voluntate  discussa).  Then  let  them  select  one  of  the 
priests  or  deacons  of  the  metropolitan  church  of  whom 
the  priests  of  the  province  will  give  good  testimony  to 
you,  to  the  end  that  you  may  be  pleased  with  the  man 
that  has  pleased  them."  This  is  democracy ;  this  is  inde- 
pendence ;  this  is  representative  government.  With  two 
councils  a  year  in  every  province,  with  every  considera- 
tion paid  to  the  will  of  people  and  clergy  in  the  election 
of  bishops,  with  both  the  councils  and  the  elections  free 
from  Roman  interference,  there  was  every  safeguard  for 
a  community's  liberty,  dignity  and  self-respect. 

But  when  feudalism  and  barbarian  habits  fastened  upon 
Catholicism,  freedom  disappeared,  apparently  forever; 
the  faithful,  once  disciples  became  vassals ;  the  bishops 
were  transformed  into  powerful  barons ;  and  the  Pope, 
from  being  a  spiritual  shepherd,  placed  himself  at  the 
apex  of  the  system  as  temporal  sovereign  and  universal 
lord.  By  the  eleventh  century  the  people  had  lost  all 
voice  in  the  naming  of  bishops.  Thereafter  provincial 
councils  began  to  fall  into  desuetude ;  papal  delegates 
frequently  presided  over  them  when  they  were  held ; 
appeals   of  all  kinds  consequently  were   sent  to  Rome 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  73 

instead  of  to  the  synod ;  the  False  Decretals  carried  back 
to  a  spurious  antiquity  the  growing  pretensions  of  the 
Roman  bishop ;  a  new  language  of  excommunication,  in- 
terdict and  anathema  grew  up  in  Papacy  and  prelacy; 
bishops  surrendered  their  immemorial  rights  to  Rome; 
the  crozier  was  no  longer  a  staff  but  a  bludgeon ;  the  old 
rule  of  love  gave  way  to  a  regime  of  terror ;  and  Catholi- 
cism, once  purely  a  religion,  became  a  religion  plus 
autocracy,  secularity,  and  all  the  complicated  machinery 
of  a  world-wide  absolutist  government. 

Of  this  absolutism  Papal  legates,  as  we  have  said,  were 
and  are  the  agents.  So  impudent  was  their  foreignism, 
so  arrogant  their  use  of  power,  so  consuming  their  appe- 
tite for  money,  and  so  destructive  their  activity  in  in- 
trigue, that  learned,  spirited  and  saintly  men  complained 
against  them  and  governments  were  obliged  in  self- 
defence  to  supervise  and  control  them.  Ivo  of  Chartres 
writes  to  Pope  Paschal :  "Inasmuch  as  the  cardinal- 
legates  you  send  us  are  only  transient  among  us,  not  only 
can  they  not  properly  care  for  the  things  that  ought  to 
be  cared  for,  but  they  cannot  even  know  them.  Many 
people  are  therefore  complaining  .  .  .  that  the 
Apostolic  See  is  less  solicitous  for  the  good  of  its  sub- 
jects than  for  the  fair  fortune  of  itself  and  its  legates 
(Sedem  Apostolicam  non  subditorum  qncerere  sanitatem. 
sed  suam  aut  lateralium  suoriim  qucerere  commodita- 
tem).  Therefore  I  and  my  co-religionists,  troubled  by 
these  murmurs,  have  determined  to  write  you,  loyal  sons 
of  the  Roman  Church  as  we  are,  that  you  entrust  the 


74  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

legateship  to  someone  this  side  of  the  Alps  (ut  alicui 
transalpine)  legationem  Sedis  Apostolictz  injungatis)". 
(Ep.  109.)  In  another  letter  to  the  same  Pope,  Ivo 
resents  the  Roman  spies  and  delators  who  have  injured 
him  in  Rome.  "I  have  never  read  or  heard  up  to  this 
time  that  the  Apostolic  See  was  accustomed  to  condemn 
an  absent  man  on  the  testimony  of  one  delator,  however 
exalted  his  position"  (Ep.  219).  Likewise  wrote  Hinc- 
mar  of  Rheims  to  Pope  Adrian,  who  had  severely  cen- 
sured Hincmar  for  having  taken  sides  with  Charles  the 
Bald  against  Lothair :  "Your  letter  to  me  has  been  based 
upon  reports ;  and  whoever  has  given  you  the  informa- 
tion, oral  or  written,  on  which  your  letter  is  based,  has 
lied"  (Ep.  27). 

The  abuses  here  resented  still  exist — witness  the  in- 
famies of  a  Satolli  in  America  and  a  Lorenzelli  in  France 
— but  the  noble  spirit  of  these  protests  has  departed  from 
the  episcopate.  What  work  do  these  foreign  delegates 
accomplish  that  provincial  or  national  synods  could  not 
do  vastly  better  ?  What  place  is  there  in  our  free  country 
for  these  spies  with  their  blacklists  of  independent  and 
learned  priests,  of  whom  they  keep  Rome  informed, 
lest  one  of  them  be  named  for  a  bishopric?  What  proof 
have  we  that  these  Italians  understand  us ;  that  they  pos- 
sess more  than  medieval  intelligence ;  that  they  are  can- 
did and  straight  spoken ;  that  they  are  useful  for  any 
conceivable  need  of  spiritual  religion?  Yet  no  Ivo  and 
no  Hincmar  speak  the  needed  word  of  indignation. 
Silent  our  episcopate,  even  when  the  abominable  calumny 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  75 

of  an  Italian  legate  has  laid  one  of  their  body  in  the  dust ! 
Silent,  when  again  from  the  Roman  princeship  which  his 
American  gold  maintains,  this  same  man  twice  defies  and 
overrides  their  collective  judgment !  Silent  always,  spirit- 
less always,  servile  always,  now  that  Kenrick  is  no  more, 
Williams  is  gone  and  Spalding  is  in  the  shadow.  Were 
they  not  citizens  of  the  United  States,  one  could  wish 
them  no  fate  that  they  more  deserve  than  to  be  what 
they  are — the  pompous  lackeys  of  the  masters  they  sup- 
port in  Italy. 

The  position  of  the  Generals  of  religious  orders  in 
Rome  is  another  of  the  most  significant  proofs  of  how 
Papal  centralization  Las  worked  to  the  degradation  of 
religion.  These  men  are  monks,  friars,  or  clerics  of 
various  degree  and  denomination,  who  have  given  up 
their  lives  ostensibly  to  poverty,  simplicity,  lowliness  and 
the  spirit  of  evangelical  perfection.  They  represent  the 
monastic  life  and  tradition.  They  are  the  heirs  of  the 
cenobites  of  Egypt,  the  religious  family  of  Benedict,  the 
clerks  of  Augustine,  the  poor  brethren  of  Francis,  and 
various  adaptations  of  these  classic  types  of  conventual 
life.  What  then  are  they  doing  in  Rome,  the  source  of 
power,  exalted  station,  and  privilege  of  every  sort?  Is 
it  to  learn  from  the  Papacy  new  lessons  in  humility?  Is 
it  to  catch  from  the  Curia  some  higher  spirit  of  poverty 
and  simplicity  ?  Is  it  that  the  Vatican  palace,  the  swarm- 
ing monsignori,  the  gorgeous  cardinals,  or  the  Swiss 
Guard  have  something  of  the  Christ-life  to  teach  that  the 
convent  cell  cannot  discover?     The  Thebaid  monks  had 


j6  LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 

no  Roman  senate,  yet  suffered  nothing-  thereby  in  sanc- 
tity. St.  Benedict  sent  no  representative  to  the  Papal 
See,  yet  his  is  called  the  golden  age  of  the  monastic  life. 
St.  Francis  of  a  surety  would  have  stripped  the  habit 
from  the  back  of  any  of  his  monks  who  suggested  that 
the  order  would  gain  many  favors  and  ample  faculties  if 
it  had  someone  with  ready  access  to  the  Pope's  ear;  yet 
Francis  knew  something  of  the  duties  and  the  dangers 
of  the  religious  state.  Why  is  it  that  these  powerful 
Father-Generals  are  clustered  about  the  Pope?  It  is 
because  the  spirit  of  domination,  the  sense  of  centraliza- 
tion, the  tone  and  temper  of  absolutism,  which  the 
Papacy's  example  has  produced,  have  penetrated  and 
perverted  monasticism,  and  made  religious  orders  a  men- 
ace to  liberty  and  intelligence.  Beyond  question  religious 
orders  are  schools  of  sanctity  and  still  are  fruitful  in  holy 
and  heroic  souls.  With  them  on  their  spiritual  side,  just 
as  with  the  Catholic  Church  on  its  spiritual  side,  I  have 
no  quarrel.  Against  them  as  agencies  for  developing 
the  inner  life  I  have  never  said,  nor  ever  shall  say,  any 
word.  But  because  the  orders  following  Papal  prece- 
dent, have  a  huge  and  menacing  political  and  secular  side, 
and  because  in  this  department  of  their  activity  they  are 
false  to  the  Gospel  and  a  scandal  to  Christianity,  I  feel 
constrained  to  bear  witness  against  them,  and  to  aid  in  the 
formation  of  a  public  opinion  which  shall  in  time  destroy 
the  secular  in  them  that  the  spiritual  may  more  truly  live. 
These  miniature  Curias,  these  Popes  in  little,  whether 
black,  brown  or  white,  of  the  great  orders,  exist  about 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  JJ 

the  Vatican  very  largely  for  purposes  of  aggrandize- 
ment and  intrigue.  They  are  perpetually  begging  the 
Pope  for  new  monopolies  of  piety,  new  confraternities, 
new  scapulars,  new  medals,  new  indulgences.  Should 
one  order  by  some  coup  d'etat  gain  this  or  that  Papal 
privilege,  at  once  the  others  flock  about  the  Pope  to 
demand  that  an  equivalent  favor  be  bestowed  on  them. 
The  Jesuits  have  complete  control  of  the  League  of  the 
Sacred  Heart,  and  the  heavenly  treasures  thereto  apper- 
taining. The  Dominicans  hold  in  fee  simple  the  Rosary 
Society.  The  Scapular  confraternity  is  the  prize  of  the 
Carmelites ;  and  to  the  Franciscans  have  been  made  over, 
after  a  bitter  fight  with  the  Capuchins,  the  privileges  of 
the  Stations  of  the  Cross. 

Were  it  to  happen  that  the  Benedictines,  for  example, 
presumed  to  take  a  hand  in  directing  the  operations  and 
dividing  the  enormous  profits  of  the  League  of  the  Sacred 
Heart;  or  that  the  Jesuits  encroached  upon  the  domain 
of  the  Rosary  Society, — which,  by  the  way,  they  actually 
attempted,  but  got  a  reproof  for  their  audacity, — the 
wheels  would  hum  in  Rome.  The  Roman  Congregations 
and  the  Holy  Father  himself  would  be  petitioned  by  the 
aggrieved  monopolists,  and  reminded  that  Pope  so-and- 
so  in  rescript  such-and-such,  transferred  to  them  exclu- 
sive rights  over  this  particular  province  of  the  graces  of 
God  Almighty.  So  watchful  are  they  against  being  over- 
reached by  one  another  that  Rome  has  equivalently 
extended  to  all  the  great  orders  privileges  which  originally 
were  conferred  upon  only  one.     Thus,  if  the  Jesuits  have 


78  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

Ignatius-water,  the  Benedictines  enjoy  a  miraculous 
medal — think  of  Benedict's  disciples  descending  so  low! 
If  innumerable  indulgences  may  be  gained  by  visiting  a 
Franciscan  church  on  a  special  day  in  the  year,  equal 
indulgences  may  be  won  by  visiting  a  Benedictine  church 
on  another,  or  a  Carmelite  church  on  still  another;  if  the 
Carmelites  promise  you  a  stunning  aggregate  of  indul- 
gences for  wearing  the  scapular,  the  Dominicans  assure 
you  of  even  more  marvelous  ones  by  carrying  the  beads 
in  your  pocket.  So  the  sordid  competition  goes  on,  until 
the  Papal  documents  granting  to  the  orders  commenda- 
tions, favors  and  immunities  have  been  put  into  hug« 
collections  properly  classified  as  "Bullarium  Domini  > 
canum",  "Bullarium  Carmelitanum",  and  so  on.  A  race 
for  privilege,  a  jealous  vigilance  over  one  another,  an 
unholy  traffic,  and  an  abominable  intrigue — these  seem 
to  be  among  the  chief  purposes  for  which  the  monks  oi 
the  present  day  have  set  up  establishments  about  the 
Papal  court. 

If,  Sovereign  Pontiff,  you  were  to  abolish  every  onf. 
of  the  monastic  senate-houses  in  your  Papal  city,  and 
send  back  every  member  of  them  to  his  proper  place  in 
cell,  study,  or  pulpit ;  if  you  were  to  annihilate  these  dis- 
gusting spiritual  monopolies  out  of  which  our  modern 
monks  are  gaining  gold  and  glory;  if  you  were  to  put 
an  end  to  these  high  courts  of  intrigue  and  these  dan- 
gerous centralizations  of  power,  you  would  do  a  service 
to  pure  religion  such  as  has  not  come  from  the  Papacy 
in  a  thousand  years. 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  79 

The  history  of  the  Jesuits  during  the  latter  half  of 
the  sixteenth  century  illustrates  how  well  these  vast  cor- 
porations have  learned  an  unholy  lesson  from  the  Papacy, 
and  how  disastrous  and  mischievous  their  work  can  be. 
Under  the  lead  of  Father  Parsons,  one  of  the  arch- 
plotters  of  history,  they  gained  control  of  the  English 
seminaries  in  Europe,  reduced  the  secular  priests  of  Eng- 
land to  the  position  of  menials,  prevented  the  appoint- 
ment of  an  English  bishop  who  would  of  course  have 
checked  their  high-handed  overlordship,  put  the  English 
Catholics  under  suspicion  of  foreignism  and  disloyalty, 
and  were  incessantly  active  in  bringing  it  about  that 
Spain  and  the  Papacy  declare  war  on  the  English  realm. 
When  the  diocesan  priests  of  England  petitioned  Rome 
for  a  bishop,  Parsons  persuaded  the  Pope  to  send  an 
arch-priest  instead ;  and  to  this  office  was  appointed 
Blackwell,  who  was  a  characterless  tool  in  the  hands  of 
Parsons.  The  secular  priests  sent  two  deputies  to  the 
Pope  to  protest  against  Blackwell's  neglect  of  their  in- 
terests and  his  utter  subservience  to  the  Jesuits.  Where- 
upon the  Jesuits  anticipated  their  arrival  in  Rome  with 
defamatory  letters  denouncing  them  as  fomentors  of 
schism,  and  succeeded  so  well  that  when  the  envoys 
reached  the  Papal  city  they  were  flung  into  prison  and 
placed  in  the  custody  of  Parsons,  who  for  four  months 
subjected  them  to  indignity  and  insult.  The  Jesuits 
were  given  charge  of  the  Roman  seminary  where  Eng- 
lish lads  were  preparing  for  the  mission  in  their  own 
country,  and   set  up  there   a   spy-system   which   was   so 


80  LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 

odious  that  the  students  rose  in  rebellion.  "If  such  spies 
were  in  Oxford,"  writes  Dr.  Ely,  "they  would  be  plucked 
in  pieces."  Every  insidious  attempt  was  made  to  incul- 
cate in  the  hearts  of  these  British  boys  hatred  and  dis- 
loyalty to  their  country.  Thirty-seven  students  banded 
together  in  revolt  against  the  Jesuits,  to  only  ten  on  the 
side  of  their  teachers.  Let  it  be  remembered  to  the  ever- 
lasting honor  of  these  noble  little  Englishmen  that 
when  a  cardinal  sent  by  the  Pope  posted  a  proclamation 
in  the  college  bidding  them  to  be  obedient  to  their  pre- 
ceptors, they  tore  the  document  to  pieces.  Despite  the 
fact  that  Parsons  had  taken  an  oath  on  his  arrival  in 
England  that  his  mission  was  purely  spiritual  and  had 
nothing  to  do  with  politics,  we  find  him  within  six 
months  a  perjurer,  in  active  communication  with  the 
Spanish  ambassador  plotting  the  downfall  and  deposition 
of  Elizabeth.  When  the  Armada,  preceded  by  Pius  V's 
stupid  and  criminal  deposition  of  Elizabeth,  sailed  to  the 
attack  on  English  liberties,  Parsons,  by  written  and 
spoken  word,  urged  Catholic  Englishmen  that  it  was  their 
Christian  and  Catholic  duty  to  fight  against  their  sover- 
eign, which  to  their  credit  they  refused  to  do.  Again  in 
the  succeeding  reign  Parsons  wrote  his  work  on  the 
English  succession,  maintaining  that  James  I  should  be 
deposed  and  the  crown  given  to  the  Infanta  of  Spain. 
Two  years  later  he  brought  out  another  work,  in  which 
he  lays  down  rules  of  procedure  to  be  followed  when 
Catholicism  should  again  be  supreme  in  England.  One 
of  his  points  is  that  in  that  day  the  Inquisition  must  be 


LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS  8l 

established.  Worn  out  by  these  detestable  plots  and  dis- 
loyalties, a  group  of  Catholic  English  gentlemen,  one  year 
after  this  last-mentioned  book  had  been  published,  sent 
a  protest  against  the  Jesuits  to  Pope  Clement  VIII. 
Their  complaints  are :  That  whoever  obey  not  every 
Jesuit  command,  "shall  be  censured  either  as  apostates 
or  Heretics,  or  tainted  at  least  with  some  infection  of 
Heresie"  ;  that  "nothing  is  holie  that  they  have  not  sanc- 
tified, no  doctrine  Catholick  and  sound  that  cometh  not 
from  them" ;  that  the  Jesuits  despise  and  disparage  other 
priests ;  that  money  given  them  is  never  seen  again ;  that 
"the  expenses  of  one  Jesuit  were  able  to  mayntayne 
twentie  priests  plentifully  and  richly" ;  that  they  steal  for 
their  own  order  candidates  for  the  English  mission ;  that 
they  have  injured  Douai ;  that  they  have  entered  among 
the  Catholic  prisoners  at  Wisbeach  and  brought  dissen- 
sion where  before  there  had  been  peace;  that  they  fawn 
on  the  noble  and  rich,  and  get  themselves  remembered  in 
wills ;  that  they  take  away  the  good  names  of  priests ; 
and  that  their  equivocation  is  a  public  scandal,  "inso- 
much as  they  are  commonly  held  nowadays  as  great 
lyars".  Yet  so  convinced  is  a  religious  order  that  even 
its  dishonorable  acts  have  divine  approval  that  Father 
Agazzari,  rector  of  the  English  College  in  Rome,  wrote 
to  Parsons  in  1596,  remarking  on  the  course  of  Provi- 
dence in  bringing  about  the  unexpected  death  of  many 
who  were  out  of  harmony  with  the  Society  in  the  con- 
duct of  English  affairs.  Referring  to  Cardinal  Allen, 
he  says:     "So  long  as  Allen  walked  aright  in  this  mat- 


82  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

ter  in  union  with,  and  fidelity  to,  the  Company,  as  he 
used  to  do,  God  preserved,  prospered  and  exalted  him. 
But  when  he  began  to  leave  this  path,  in  a  moment  the 
threads  of  his  plans  and  life  were  cut  short  together" 
(Douai  Diaries  P.  xcviii.). 

It  would  be  very  easy  to  narrate  similar  mischiefs  per- 
petrated by  the  Jesuits,  as,  for  example,  their  persecu- 
tion of  the  Venerable  Palafox  in  Mexico,  and  Bishop 
Pardo  in  Manila ;  their  opposition  to  the  Papal  confirm- 
ation of  Vincent  de  Paul's  Congregation,  or  their  in- 
trigues against  the  University  of  Louvain.  But  let  the 
one  instance  just  sketched  suffice  to  show  the  danger  of 
centralized  power  in  a  great  religious  order,  and  the 
loss  that  afflicts  religion  when  monks  are  banded  to- 
gether into  a  vast  and  conceited  federation,  whose  aims 
are  largely  selfish  and  whose  methods  are  in  great  measure 
Machiavellian.  It  is  unfortunate,  indeed,  for  religion 
that  the  Jesuits  have  not  heeded  the  prophetic  warning- 
written  by  one  of  their  visitors  to  the  province  of  upper 
Germany  in  1596,  the  very  date  of  Parson's  "Memorial 
of  the  Reformation  in  England".  This  visitor,  in  his 
"Memorial  Concerning  the  Better  Observance  of  Rule", 
writes  as  follows :  "The  holy  Ignatius  gave  warning 
against  mingling  in  worldly  business.  The  plainest  ex- 
amples and  experiences  have  taught  us  that  God  is  not 
with  us  in  such  affairs.  At  all  times  when  our  members, 
even  though  asked  and  constrained  thereto,  not  only  by 
priests  but  even  by  Popes,  have  shared  in  such  matters, 
the  thing  has  had  an  evil  ending;  and  for  the  Society 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  83 

this  yielding  has  resulted  in  much  shame  and  no  manner 
of  edification  either  for  Catholics  or  heretics.  Even  the 
present  Pope  has  publicly  made  it  a  matter  of  reproach 
to  us,  and  through  the  Pope,  it  is  piously  held  that  God 
speaks,  as  through  His  vicar,  that  we  have  immersed 
ourselves  in  the  affairs  of  princes  and  kingdoms,  and 
wish  to  rule  the  world's  conscience  according  to  our 
ideas.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  the  last  General  Con- 
gregation (1593-4)  in  a  vigorous  decree  has  bidden  us 
to  hold  ourselves  aloof  from  such  business.  And  if  after 
so  many  sad  results  we  do  not  end  in  becoming  pru- 
dent, it  is  to  be  feared  that  some  day  we  shall  feel  many 
grievous  strokes  of  the  chastising  hand  of  God." 

Holy  Father,  what  liberties  can  be  safely  trusted  to 
a  Papacy  in  itself  so  absolute,  and  surrounded  by  these 
lesser  absolutisms?  Go  back  to  that  forgotten  Gospel, 
and  that  perverted  Christ!  See  if  in  His  pure,  spiritual 
and  saving  word  there  is  aught  to  justify  these  exasper- 
ating violations  of  the  world's  growing  freedom,  enlarg- 
ing independence,  and  righteous  zeal  for  liberty.  See  if 
it  be  a  thing  approved  by  Him  that  the  Providential  evo- 
lution of  humanity  in  the  ideals  of  democracy  be  ob- 
structed by  the  offensive  absolutism  that  now  rules  from 
Rome.  Examine  history,  and  see  whether  the  scandal 
of  ambition,  avarice,  nepotism  and  brutality  that  lie  so 
black  a  shadow  on  the  history  of  your  pontifical  office, 
be  not  directly  due  to  a  departure  from  the  ancient  sim- 
ple ways,  and  to  a  following  after  royalty  and  universal 
dominion.     Yes,  Roman  Pontiff,  there  can  be  no  doubt 


84  LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 

whatever  that  the  Papacy  has  so  clothed  itself  with  the 
robes  of  Caesar  that  beneath  them  the  world's  eye  can 
no  longer  discern  the  Christ. 

Will  you  change  all  this?  Dare  you  speak  the  quick- 
ening word  that  shall  sweep  away  your  Roman  legates, 
your  Latin  monopoly,  your  Italian  despotism,  and  re- 
store Catholicity  to  a  free  spiritual  brotherhood,  gov- 
erned by  its  local  synods  once  more,  appointing  its  own 
rulers  as  of  old,  and  obliged  no  longer  to  hear  the  taunt 
of  the  modern  age  that  we  are  Italian  serfs,  and  our 
bishops  only  acolytes  of  a  foreign  prelate? 

Will  you  give  us  the  ancient  independence?  Will  you 
turn  aside  from  idolatry  of  power?  Will  you  prove  that 
Catholicism  is  not  bound  to  decaying  forms  of  non-rep- 
resentative monarchy?  Will  you  renovate  monasticism? 
Will  you  destroy  Rome's  hideous  secularities,  that  scan- 
dalize the  world,  and  make  spirituality  not  only  supreme 
but  alone  in  Catholicism? 

Again  must  we  answer:  No  hope!  It  is  the  lesson 
of  the  history  of  all  attempted  reform :  No  hope !  All 
that  is  left  to  spiritual  men  is  to  disentangle  the  religious, 
the  mystical,  the  divine  in  Catholicism  from  the  Roman, 
the  secular,  the  despotic,  and  go  their  own  way  towards 
God ;  abandoning  the  expectation  of  a  Christian  unity 
which  is  visible,  and  working  as  best  they  can  for  that 
unseen  unity  of  spirit  which  is  not  to  be  bodied  forth  in 
visible  form  until  every  travesty  of  religion,  and  every 
perversion  of  Christ  shall  have  passed  away  from  the 
earth  forever. 


LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS  85 

XV 

Indulgences 

Your  Holiness: 

The  destruction  of  personality  in  one  department 
means  the  actual  or  the  potential  destruction  of  it  in  all 
departments.  Take  away  from  man  his  personal,  vital 
initiative  in  matters  of  government,  and  you  have  begun 
to  make  him  mechanical  and  formal  in  morality,  and 
superstitious  in  religion.  For  a  mechanical  morality  and 
a  superstitious  religion  cannot  long  exist  in  a  soul  that 
grows  from  within ;  that  is  trained  to  be  conscious  of  re- 
sponsibility, that  is  disciplined  by  the  sense  of  individual 
freedom  unto  life's  supreme  purpose  of  character-con- 
struction. On  the  other  hand,  if  individuality  is  cribbed, 
cabined  and  confined,  it  results  in  a  religion  that  is  not 
based  on  the  bed-rock  of  individual  conscience,  private 
responsibility  and  personal  endeavor;  but  is  ever  seeking 
imputed  righteousness,  magical  means  of  grace,  and  ex- 
ternal substitutes  for  the  soul's  own  effort.  A  man  that 
weakly  relies  on  someone  else  to  do  the  whole  business 
of  government  will  weakly  rely  on  somebody  or  some- 
thing else  to  transact  the  business  of  his  salvation.  A 
man  whose  entire  and  infallible  gospel  is  Authority,  and 
who  avows  that  through  thick  or  thin  he  is  going  to  let 
authority  provide  for  everything,  think  of  everything  and 
do  everything,  in  the  fancy  that  Authority  dispenses  him 
from    thinking,   and    subverts   the    whole    God-ordained 


86  LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 

scheme  of  human  evolution,  that  man  is  a  parasite;  and 
his  religion  will  be  parasitic,  too. 

Authority  is  good  only  when  it  bespeaks  co-opera- 
tive effort.  It  is  the  most  deadly  pest  in  the  moral  world 
when  it  overrides  co-operative  effort,  and  silences  in- 
stead of  evoking  the  common  intelligence  and  the  com- 
mon individuality  of  the  governed.  And  a  religion  which 
so  conceives  its  function  of  authority  as  to  make  its 
subjects  lean  on  some  exterior  support  to  the  detriment 
of  interior  endeavor,  is  producing  a  low  grade  of  char- 
acter, a  sleeping-sickness  of  the  soul,  a  weak  and  moon- 
faced kind  of  spirituality  which  breathes  of  incapacity 
and  disease. 

Especially  in  the  modern  age  is  such  a  religion 
doomed  to  death.  Personality,  and  therefore  reality,  are 
everything  in  these  days  of  ours.  Shams,  magic,  parades, 
and  nostrums  are  outgrown.  What  does  it  mean  for- 
character?  How  does  it  invigorate  personality?  To 
what  extent  will  it  build  up  a  high  and  sturdy  individual- 
ity that  is  grown  in  the  soil  of  freedom  and  responsibility  ? 
These  are  the  questions  we  are  asking  of  a  religion 
that  appeals  for  allegiance  nowadays.  Salvation  by  im- 
putation ;  salvation  vicariously ;  salvation  by  doing  rather 
than  by  being,  is  of  the  past.  Salvation  by  character,  by 
the  inward  majesty  of  lonely  spiritual  upbuilding,  is  of 
the  present  and  the  future.  The  king's  touch  cures 
scrofula  no  longer.  Only  the  purifying  of  one's  own  blood 
from  its  sources  will  do  it.  Neither  shall  we  be  saved 
though  we  were  buried  beneath  somebody  else's  "mer- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  87 

its'" ;  only  the  toilsome  labor  of  the  god-like  Self  shall  save 
us.  So  believes  the  present  intelligence  of  man  long. en- 
slaved to  a  confidence  in  king's  touches  and  transferred 
righteousnesses.  So  will  believe  the  future,  and  with  ever- 
growing clearness  and  intensity  of  conviction. 

Because  this  spiritual  attitude  proceeds  from  a  high 
conception  of  individuality,  the  Papacy  seems  utterly  un- 
able to  comprehend  it.  Regarding  its  subjects  not  as 
emancipated  personalities,  but  as  wilted,  sapless  stalks, 
to  bend  in  whatsoever  direction  the  great  god  Authority 
breathes  upon  them,  it  ignores  that  vital  inwardness  of 
religion,  in  which  alone  lies  godliness,  if  there  is  any 
godliness,  and  buries  us  fathoms  deep  with  the  "merits" 
of  dead  Saints,  with  wonder-working  formulas,  with  sal- 
vation-producing badges,  with  punishment-acquitting  in- 
dulgences. Carry  beads  in  your  pocket  and  thousands  of 
years  of  indulgence  are  imparted  to  you,  representing 
an  acquittal  of  that  punishment  which  your  sins  deserve. 
Wear  a  bit  of  cloth  about  the  neck  and  full  remission, 
nay,  unnumbered  full  remissions  of  punishment  are  prom- 
ised you.  Say  certain  ejaculatory  prayers,  and  hun- 
dreds of  days  of  indulgences  are  gained.  Visit  a  Fran- 
ciscan Church  on  a  certain  day,  a  Jesuit  Church  on  an- 
other, a  Servite  Church  on  another,  and  scores  of  full 
acquittals  of  sin-punishment  are  held  out  to  you. 
Whereas,  should  you  say  other  forms  of  prayers  in 
themselves  equally  good,  or  visit  a  church  in  charge  of 
a  mere  secular  priest,  these  enormous  remissions,  these 
multiplied  centuries  of  indulgences  are  not  gained  at  all. 


88  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

If  of  two  men  of  equal  spiritual  value,  one  wears  a  scap- 
ular, but  the  other  has  inadvertently  omitted  the  wearing 
of  it,  number  one,  notwithstanding  the  character-equality 
of  both,  will  be  out  of  Purgatory  long  before  number 
two.  To  these  utterly  external  gestures,  motions  and 
garments,  a  transcendental  value  is  attached  which  can 
belong  to  nothing  in  the  world  but  private  worth  and 
personal  effort.  It  is  a  degradation  of  religion  which  is 
wrong  in  principle ;  since  when  we  go  before  God  for 
judgment — if  we  be  permitted  to  discern  divine  justice 
through  the  sole  analogy  possible  to  us,  namely,  human 
justice — we  shall  be  assigned  to  that  lot  or  station  in  the 
world  of  spirits  which  our  character,  our  essential  worth, 
as  individuals,  irrespective  of  our  ejaculations,  our 
clothes,  or  our  trinkets,  deserves.  And  it  is  disastrous  in 
practice,  since  it  supersedes  being  by  doing;  since  it  is 
a  species  of  magic ;  since  it  encourages  superstition ; 
since  it  endangers  the  only  morality  worthy  the  name — 
the  morality  of  self-effort,  self-responsibility. 

Awful  in  sublimity  and  sacredness  as  are  the  relations 
of  an  immortal  Soul  with  Deity,  the  Papacy's  theory  and 
practice  of  indulgences  have  degraded  them  by  a  super- 
stition, irreverence,  bargaining  and  trafficking,  which  I 
venture  to  say  no  heathen  religion  has  ever  surpassed. 
The  Popes  have  encouraged  religious  orders  in  a  scan- 
dalous scramble  for  these  favors.  They  have  granted 
them  for  purely  worldly  purposes  and  purely  secular  ac- 
tions ;  they  have  authorized  a  most  unholy  commerce 
in  them ;  they  have  poured  them  out  so  prodigally  that 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  89 

we  can  make  neither  sense  nor  reason  out  of  the  wild 
welter  of  them ;  they  have  not  hearkened  to  the  petitions 
of  disgusted  men,  who  have  implored  them  to  check  this 
abominable  abuse. 

Needless  to  say,  neither  the  Gospel  nor  primitive 
Christianity  gives  any  countenance  either  to  the  doc- 
trine or  to  the  present  practice  of  indulgences.  The  ar- 
gument that  the  text,  "Whatsoever  you  shall  bind"  etc., 
and  that  the  letters  given  by  the  martyrs  to  the  lapsed, 
prove  the  evangelical  origin  and  the  early  use  of  indul- 
gences, a  man  cannot,  without  losing  his  self-respect,  even 
stoop  to   refute. 

Indulgences  really  began  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries.  They  began  very  humbly,  too,  for  then  it  was 
a  great  thing  if  a  Pope  granted  an  indulgence  of  seven 
days ;  and  a  year's  indulgence  was  an  altogether  unusual 
allowance.  But  the  Crusades  and  the  religious  orders 
opened  the  flood-gates,  the  money  feature  opened  them 
still  wider,  and  with  Indulgences  have  we  ever  since 
been  scandalized  and  suffocated.  Forty  days'  indulgence 
has  been  given  for  being  present  at  an  auto-da-fe; 
another  for  carrying  wood  to  the  stake  of  a  condemned 
heretic ;  a  plenary  for  assisting  the  Inquisition  to  hunt 
heretics ;  a  plenary  to  contributors  to  the  Crusades ;  fifty 
days  for  kissing  the  foot  of  St.  Peter's  statue  in  the 
Vatican ;  one  hundred  days  for  each  use  of  holy  water. 
Benedict  XIV  granted  a  plenary  to  the  members  of  the 
royal  family  in  Vienna  for  every  visit  they  made  to  the 
Church  of  the  Canons  Regular  near  the  palace.     Urban 


90  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

VI  ordered  England  to  go  to  war  with  France  because 
France  supported  his  rival,  Clement  VII,  and  promised 
indulgences  to  the  volunteers.  John  XXIII  did  likewise 
in  announcing  a  crusade  against  Naples  for  supporting 
the  anti-pope  Gregory.  Leo  X  held  out  a  plenary  to  all 
who  would  pray  at  High  Mass  for  King  Francis  I.  In 
1835  Gregory  XVI  gave  fifty  days'  indulgence  to  the 
builders  of  a  road  to  a  Franciscan  Church,  for  every 
day's  work  spent  upon  it.  The  "Stations"  in  Rome  are 
so  enriched  that^  according  to  the  computation  of  the 
eminent  authority,  Ferraris,  one  may  there  gain  in  one 
year  forty-nine  plenaries  and  more  than  one  and  one- 
half  million  years  of  partials.  Eight  hundred  plenaries 
are  attached  to  St.  Peter's.  The  indulgence  of  the  "via 
crucis"    no   man   can    calculate.      By   authority   of    Pius 

VII  and  Pius  IX,  every  step  of  the  Scala  Santa  has  an 
indulgence  of  nine  thousand  years  and  nine  thousand 
quarantines.  The  "Scala  Santa"  is  absurdly  supposed 
to  be  the  stairway  to  Pilate's  house,  which  Christ  ascend- 
ed at  his  trial.  The  little  church  of  the  Portiuncula  was, 
on  the  strength  of  a  spurious  vision  of  St.  Francis,  en- 
riched with  a  new  form  of  indulgence,  the  totics  quoties; 
that  is,  those  who  visited  it  on  its  great  festival  in  August, 
gained  a  plenary  indulgence  each  time  they  entered.  The 
totics  quoties,  once  started  on  its  way,  was  too  fine  a 
favor  not  to  travel  far.  So  in  a  short  time  the  "totics 
quoties"  plenary  was  vouchsafed  to  every  Franciscan 
Church  on  Portiuncula-day.  The  other  orders,  of  course, 
clamored  for  their  totics  quoties,  and  the  toties  quoties 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  9 1 

was  theirs.  You  get  it  in  a  Dominican  Church  on  the 
feast  of  the  Rosary ;  in  a  Servite  Church  on  the  third 
Sunday  in  September,  the  feast  of  the  Seven  Dolors ;  and 
by  grant  of  Your  Holiness,  in  a  Benedictine  Church  on 
the  second  of  November.  By  visiting  the  Servite  Church 
at  Florence  you  gain,  by  favor  of  Leo  X,  an  indulgence 
of  a  thousand  years.  Moreover,  Servite  Churches  enjoy 
twenty-seven  plenaries  a  year  for  visits  on  special  days, 
and  Jesuit  Churches  twenty-two. 

Ample  as  are  these  heavenly  treasures  made  over  to 
the  Orders  by  Rome,  they  have  proceeded  to  forge  still 
others.  The  Franciscans  have  had  certainly  three  collec- 
tions of  fabricated  indulgences  condemned,  the  Carmel- 
ites four,  the  Premonstratensions,  Benedictines  and  Jes- 
uits at  least  one  each.  Unfortunately  only  a  portion  of 
their  falsifications  have  come  under  the  ban.  Others  still 
flourish  and  are  pontifically  enriched  with  the  marvelous 
favors  of  the  God  of  Truth.  The  Carmelite,  or  ordinary 
brown  scapular,  brings  vast  indulgences  to  its  wearer, 
and  moreover,  according  to  current  ideas  propagated 
first  by  the  Carmelites,  but  now  advanced  by  nearly  all 
priests  who  consider  that  scapular-wearing  is  salutary, 
it  is  a  protection  against  danger,  and  insures  salvation 
to  those  that  die  with  it.  This  scapular  is  based  upon 
an  apparition  to  the  English  Carmelite  General,  Simon 
Stock,  wherein  the  Blessed  Virgin  gave  him  the  scapular 
with  the  command  to  spread  it  everywhere,  and  with  the 
huge  promises  of  divine  blessing  that  are  still  related 
to  us. 


92 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 


Hardly  a  fiction  in  history  is  so  destitute  of  founda- 
tion.    As  is  the  case  with  the  House  of  Loretto,  it  was 
not  until  generations  after  the  supposed  event  that  the 
least  mention  of  it  was  made.    A  clumsier  forgery  hard- 
ly exists;  yet  Launoy,  for  attacking  it  along  with  other 
venerable  and  profitable  myths,  was  put  on  the  Index. 
The  very  fact  that  the  story  is  of  Carmelite  origin  were 
almost  enough  to  disprove  it,  if  disproof  is  needed.    For 
the  members  of  that  order  have  been  probably  the  most 
shameless    forgers    that   history   records,   as   every   one 
familiar  with  its  effort  to  obtain  Papal  confirmation  is 
well  aware.    Yet  the  scapular  which  rests  upon  a  lie  has 
grown  into  a  thing  of  vast  magnitude.     Indeed,  a  Cath- 
olic who  does  not  wear  it  is  looked  upon  askance ;  he  is 
almost   sure  to  be   a  modernist.     Even  the   monstrous 
superstition  of  the  so-called  Sabbatine  privilege,  accord- 
ing to  which  it  is  maintained  that  the  Mother  of  Christ 
descends  every  Saturday  into  Purgatory  to  deliver  the 
souls  of  such  scapular-wearers  as  she  may  find  there,  has 
never  been  condemned.     In  all  probability  the  Sabbatine 
Bull  vouching  for  the  truth  of  this  thing  is  a  forgery. 
But  two  Popes,  when  directly  questioned  about  the  wild 
blasphemy  of  the  privilege,  have  not  only  not  rejected  it, 
but  by  cautious  shuffling  have  given  a  quasi-sanction  to  it. 
The  Theatines  have  a  blue  scapular,  the  authority  for 
which  is   a  nun's  vision,   and  it   rejoices   in   sixty-four 
plenaries  a  year,  besides  a  toties  quoties  that  is  offered  on 
the  most  trivial  terms.    The  Lazarists  have  a  red  scapu- 
lar— the  product  of  a  nun's  vision  again ;  and  on  the 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  93 

authority  of  another  nun's  rather  banal  colloquies  with 
the  Son  of  God,  Who  certainly  does  not  talk  in  these 
apparitions  as  He  talks  in  the  Gospel,  the  Jesuits  have 
built  up  the  colossal  fabric  of  the  League  of  the  Sacred 
Heart.  The  Margaret  Mary  revelations,  on  which  this 
Sacred  Heart  League  is  founded,  culminates  in  the  char- 
acter-destroying, God-degrading  ''promise",  that  who- 
ever receives  Communion  on  nine  successive  first  Fri- 
days will  thereby  infallibly  be  saved. 

A  particularly  offensive  feature  of  these  indulgences  is 
that  most  of  them  the  Pope  makes  applicable  to  the  souls 
in  Purgatory,  thus  offering,  as  it  were,  a  bait  to  the 
holiest  sentiment  of  the  human  heart.  Thus  those  nine 
thousand  years  and  nine  thousand  quarantines  for  every 
step  of  the  Scala  Santa  are  transferable  to  the  departed. 
Worse  than  all  else,  in  this  respect,  is  the  "privileged 
altar".  By  special  grant  a  Pope  promises  that  if  Mass 
is  said  at  any  altar  to  which  he  attaches  this  privilege — 
and  there  is  one  such  altar  in  nearly  every  large  church, 
— the  soul  for  whom  the  Mass  is  offered  is  straightway 
released  from  Purgatory.  It  is  true,  theologians  say 
that  we  cannot  know  whether  God  fulfills  the  promise  or 
not ;  but  there  is  the  Papal  promise,  there  is  the  privi- 
leged altar,  and  there  are  the  superstition  and  the  trifling 
with  the  fond  affections  of  simple  people  tc  which  it 
gives  rise. 

We  can  hardly  persuade  ourselves  that  we  are  deal- 
ing with  a  Christian  religion  when  we  see  the  solemn 
pundits  of  the  Congregation    of    Indulgences   deciding 


94  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

that  the  Carmelite  scapular  must  be  of  woven  wool. 
Lost  are  all  those  tens  of  thousands  of  years'  indulgences, 
lost  all  the  connoted  remissions  of  sin-punishment  if  it 
should  be  by  ill  fortuity  made  of  cotton !  Lost,  too,  the 
incalculable  indulgences  of  the  stations  of  the  Cross  if 
the  crosses  above  the  Stations  be  of  iron  and  not  of 
wood !  Well  may  we  put  the  question  that  Carlyle  quotes 
from  Milton :  "Do  you  think  the  living  God  is  a  buzzard 
idol,  to  be  approached  in  such  a  manner?" 

The  Crusade  indulgences  and  immunities  in  Spain 
have  a  sickening  history.  These  are  sold  to  the  poor 
peasantry,  and  a  huge  percentage  of  the  income  goes  to 
the  Spanish  crown.  Pius  V  maintaining,  as  well  he 
might,  that  this  Cruzada,  as  the  indulgence  is  called,  had 
become  a  scandal  refused  to  renew  it.  "Many,"  he  says, 
"are  made  more  prone  to  sin  by  believing  that  they  gain 
the  remission  of  so  many  and  great  sins  by  the  payment 
of  a  trifling  sum"  (quando  tot  ct  tantorum  delictorwm 
remissionem  certo  et  vilissimo  pretio  acquirere  posse 
confidant) . 

Yet  this  same  Pius  took  back  his  fine  refusal,  and  ac- 
corded the  Indulgence  when  Phillip  II  refused  to  enter 
the  league  against  the  Turks  unless  the  Pope  restored 
this  blasphemous  source  of  revenue  to  the  Spanish  crown. 
The  Cruzada  has  been  granted  every  twelve  years  down 
to  our  day,  and  its  net  annual  return  is  computed  at  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars. 

The  enormities  of  this  superstition,  sacrilege  and  si- 
mony, lie  wholly  with  the  Papacy.     Warnings  have  re- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  95 

peatedly  been  given,  and  as  often  ignored.  Of  nothing 
else  in  the  world  is  the  Papacy  so  heedless  as  of  its  own 
scandals.  The  Council  of  Constance  protested  against 
the  abuse  of  indulgences.  So  did  the  Council  of  Trent. 
So  did  every  commission  de  reformanda  Ecclesia  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  So  did  Gerson  and 
many  another  hopeless  heart. 

Naught  else  is  needed  to  show  the  uselessness  of  all 
protests,  and  all  scandals,  than  your  own  pontificate, 
Pius  X.  For  not  within  the  memory  of  living  men  have 
indulgences  been  so  bewildering  and  meaningless  in  their 
prodigality  as  under  your  regime.  Every  poor  fanatic 
that  writes  a  prayer  or  invents  an  ejaculation  is  sure  to 
be  rewarded  by  your  Holiness  with  all  the  indulgences 
requested.  Prayers  for  deaf-mutes,  prayers  to  our  Lady 
of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  to  St.  Rita,  to  St.  Joseph  and 
to  other  inhabitants  of  the  ghostly  world  too  numerous 
to  mention  have  been  poured  out  upon  us  laden  with  in- 
dulgences, until  the  pure  exercise  of  interior  religion, 
character-affecting  religion,  is  in  danger  of  being  sti- 
fled by  Pharisaism.  The  black  monks  of  St.  Benedict 
have  obtained  that  the  faithful  may  gain  a  toties  quoties 
for  visiting  Benedictine  churches  on  All  Soul's  Day, 
and  that  whoso  wears  a  St.  Benedict  medal  may  attain 
the  same  privilege  for  visiting  any  church  whatever  on 
that  festival.  Upon  the  granting  of  this,  the  Camaldo- 
lese  monks  besought  your  Holiness  to  extend  the  favor  to 
churches  in  control  of  other  Benedictines  than  the  black- 
robed  ones.    This,  too,  was  graciously  vouchsafed.    You 


96  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

have  conceded  fifty-six  plenaries  a  year  to  lay  folk  who 
belong  to  the  third  order  of  St.  Dominic.  You  have 
augmented  the  long  list  of  Sacred  Heart  indulgences. 
You  have  enriched  with  similar  treasures  the  Francis- 
cans' Crown  of  Seven  Joys  of  our  Lady.  You  have 
attached  indulgences  to  the  medal  of  the  Pius  Union 
of  the  Children  of  Mary.  And  you  have  again  set  us 
wondering  whether  we  are  dealing  with  heathenism  or 
Christianity,  by  granting,  upon  petition  of  the  Master 
General  of  the  Dominican  Order,  an  indulgence  of  forty 
thousand  five  hundred  years  once  a  year,  to  such  as 
merely  carry  the  Rosary  beads  in  their  pocket. 

Where,  in  all  this  mad  mathematics,  is  there  aught  of 
the  religion  of  Jesus  ?  How  discover  beneath  this  pagan 
superstition  and  Pharisaic  formalism  a  single  element 
that  purifies  character  or  contains  a  suggestion  of  spirit- 
ual worship?  How  does  it  differ  from  the  revolving 
barrel  of  the  Buddhist,  or  the  mummery  of  a  medicine- 
man ?  Can  these  rushings  in  and  out  of  a  church  to  gain 
the  toties  quoties,  these  chatterings  of  ejaculations,  these 
wearings  of  cloth  badges  and  carrying  of  bone  beads,  be 
a  reasonable  service  to  the  awful  Infinite?  Are  not  such 
goings-on  irreverent,  indeed,  almost  sacrilegious  before 
the  Almighty  Presence?  Did  Christ,  in  the  remotest 
manner,  ever  countenance  them?  And  are  they  edifying 
exhibitions  from  Christ's  leading  representative,  in  these 
days  above  all,  when  men  are  seeking  a  religion  that  is 
based  on  eternal  verities  and  true  realities? 

Holy  Father,  it  would  seem  that  not  only  do  you  not 
know  modern  men,  but  that  you  have  a  grotesque  con- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  97 

ception  of  the  everlasting  God.  For  surely  when  some 
noble  spiritual  understanding  of  Him  enters  a  man's 
soul  and  fills  it  with  religious  awe,  there  is  an  end  of 
toties  quoties  profanations,  and  room  only  for  a  wor- 
ship which  is  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  Book-keeping  gods, 
amulet-pleasing  gods  are  gone.  The  One  Infinite,  sus- 
taining all  things  and  breathing  divine  messages  to  the 
spirit  of  man,  remains.  Him  alone  will  humanity  worship 
forevermore. 

XVI 

Worship   in   Spirit   and   in    Truth 

Your  Holiness  : 

The  evidences  of  superstition,  of  a  religion  of  amulets, 
charms,  and  relics,  may  be  seen  wherever  Roman  Cathol- 
icism has  set  its  foot.  I  have  no  intention  whatever 
of  inveighing  against  that  inevitable  superstition  which 
will  always  be  found  among  the  uncultivated.  Despite 
the  best  efforts  of  enlightened  teachers,  a  certain  amount 
of  this  will  persist  until  it  is  dissipated  by  the  slow  proc- 
ess of  intellectual  and  spiritual  refinement.  But  when 
we  find  superstition  grown  into  a  huge  mass  among  typi- 
cally Catholic  countries ;  when  we  see  the  spirit  of  super- 
stition pervading  popular  and  official  devotion ;  when  we 
find  Catholic  literature  saturated  with  it,  the  Catholic 
mind  prone  to  it,  and  Rome  itself  encouraging  it,  we  are 
in  presence  of  something  more  than  an  accidental  and  su^ 
perficial  abuse.    We  are  confronted  by  a  deep-rooted  dis- 


98  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

ease,  a  criminal  perversion,  a  universal  scandal.  For 
such  conditions  could  exist  only  by  official  disregard 
for  the  highest  and  purest  worship,  and  official  counte- 
nance for  those  pagan  survivals  which  debase  the  lofty 
faith  of  Christ.  If  everywhere  we  come  upon  lust  for 
miracle,  extravagant  devotion  to  saints,  voracity  for 
relics,  trust  in  charms,  and  find  that  so  far  from  there 
being  any  authoritative  voice  raised  against  these  things, 
there  is  rather  condemnation — as  in  your  encyclical  on 
modernism — for  the  few  reformers  who  do  oppose  them, 
no  other  conclusion  is  possible  but  that  Papal  Rome  is 
responsible  for  a  degradation  of  that  sentiment  of  the 
soul  which  above  all  other  sentiments  it  is  iniquity  to  de- 
grade. 

One  of  the  main  purposes  of  these  letters  is  to  inform 
your  Holiness  why  the  modern  mind  is  so  estranged 
from  Catholicism.  In  pursuance  of  that  purpose  I  can- 
not avoid  speaking  of  the  subject  matter  of  this  present 
letter,  for  the  superstitions  of  which  I  am  making  men- 
tion have  far  more  to  do  with  that  estrangement  than  the 
classic  iniquities  of  Free  Masonry.  I  am  sure  it  would 
result  in  great  good  if  your  Holiness  and  the  members 
of  your  Roman  congregations  could  associate  for  a  few 
years  with  such  non-Catholics  as  we  have  in  America. 
Consider  their  errors  as  many  and  as  fatal  as  you 
will,  nevertheless  you  might  learn  at  least  the  rudiments 
of  a  useful  lesson  from  the  simplicity  of  their  worship, 
the  cleanness  of  their  devotion  from  extravagance  and 
superstition,  and  the  directness  and  unclouded  purity  of 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  99 

tlreir  relations  with  God  and  Christ.  Could  you  stand 
by  their  side  while  contemplating  the  shrieking  Neapol- 
itans on  the  feast  of  St.  Januarius,  or  while  looking  upon 
a  crowd  of  devotees  before  a  relic  of  St.  Ann,  or  again 
while  beholding  the  pageantry  of  a  pontifical  Mass,  or 
still  again  while  witnessing  the  blessing  of  the  oils  on 
Holy  Thursday,  you  might  feel  as  many  of  us  have  felt 
on  similar  occasions,  that  whatever  they  have  lost  in 
ceremonial,  they  are  somewhat  nearer  than  Catholics 
are,  to  that  worship  of  Deity  which  was  celebrated  be- 
neath the  skies  of  Galilee,  when  Jesus  led  the  Twelve  in 
prayer.  You  might  furthermore  be  led  to  reflect  that  a 
people  thus  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  religious  simplicity 
and  directness  cannot  be  drawn  to  Catholicity  so  long  as 
it  is  arrayed  in  its  present  motley  garments  of  shrines, 
relics,  special  devotions,  spiritless  pomp  and  dead  lan- 
guages. Beneath  these  tawdry  vulgarities  there  is  in- 
deed a  precious  treasure  of  genuine  religion,  but  who 
can  discern  the  valuable  if  blinded  by  the  worthless  ? 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  reflect  that  if  the  pagan  Greeks 
venerated  the  hair  of  Medusa,  the  lyre  of  Orpheus  and 
the  vessels  of  Agamemnon,  a  Christian  people  are  quite 
on  a  line  with  them  in  prostrating  before  a  mythical 
wristbone  of  St.  Ann,  or  the  rod  of  Moses,  still  kept  in 
St.  John  Lateran,  or  the  breath  of  Christ  at  Genoa,  or 
the  window  through  which  the  Angel  Gabriel  entered  the 
house  of  Mary,  or  the  disgusting  relic  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew, once  revered  at  Treves.  Neither  could  it  ever 
serve  any  conceivable  benefit  to  religion  that  high  honors 


100  LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 

have  been  paid  to  twenty  different  bodies  of  John  the 
Baptist,  eighteen  of  St.  Paul,  six  heads  of  Ignatius  Mar- 
tyr, sixty  fingers  of  St.  Jerome,  forty  holy  shrouds,  and 
seven  hundred  thorns  from  the  sacred  crown.     Nor  can 
intelligent  people  be  profitably  present  at  a  mass  or  office 
of  St.  Josaphat  when  they  know  that  he  is  none  other 
than  Buddha;  or  at  a  panegyric  of  St.  Veronica,  when 
they  are  aware  that  orginally  she  was  the  Gnostic  prin- 
ciple of  generation.    It  is  difficult,  too,  to  arouse  devotion 
to  St.  Apollinaris,  a  lineal  descendant  of  Apollo,  or  to 
Cosmas  and  Damian,  who  have  succeeded  to  the  place  of 
Castor  and  Pollux.     And  if  these  venerable  frauds  are 
to  be   indulgently  treated  on  the   ground   of  their  an- 
tiquity, what  of  the  dismissal  of  Mgr.   Duchesne  from 
the  Catholic  Institute  at  Paris  because  he  disproved  the 
absurd    legends    respecting    the     Christian    origins    of 
France?    What  of  your  own  anger  against  Canon  Chev- 
alier  for   pulverizing   the   Pope-protected   myth   of   the 
house  of  Loretto?     What  of  your  Cardinal  Vicar  sol- 
emnly approving  in   1906  an  association   for  promoting 
devotion  to  St.  Philumena,  whom  every  archeologist  in 
the  world  knows  to  be  a  downright  invention?     What, 
finally,  of  your  recent  condemnation  of  those  modernist 
reformers  who,  on  purely  historical  grounds,  show  the 
baselessness  of  many  a  famous  relic  and  many  a  wide- 
spread devotion?     These,  Holy  Father,  are  scandals  to 
the  world,  as  well  as  degradations  of  piety,  and  it-  be- 
tokens neither  love  of  truth  nor  care  for  souls  that  you 
are  responsible  for  them. 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  IOI 

Efforts  towards  simplicity  and  away  from  unreality 
in  the  Church's  devotional  life  have  been  attempted  by 
many  modernists  in  the  last  two  centuries,  but  both 
the  efforts  and  the  authors  of  them  have  gone  the  way  of 
all  reform  and  all  reformers.  The  Synod  of  Pistoia 
pleaded  for  worship  in  the  vernacular,  and  was  con- 
demned. Rather  than  allow  the  faithful  that  direct  co- 
operation in  divine  worship  which  the  early  Christians 
enjoyed,  and  which  gives  to  Protestant  service  so  much 
attractiveness  and  sincerity,  the  Papacy  compels  them  to 
be  mere  spectators  at  a  show.  The  priest  is  as  aloof 
from  Catholic  congregations  in  the  acts  of  his  ministry 
as  were  the  pagan  priests  from  theirs.  The  instinctive 
need  of  genuine  worship  to  express  itself  in  words  is 
held  in  check ;  the  very  understanding  of  the  prayers  and 
petitions  at  the  altar  is  either  obscured  or  destroyed  by 
the  use  of  an  ancient  language.  And  if  the  function  is 
"solemn",  the  sentiment  of  worship  is  itself  annihilated 
by  incensings,  marchings,  and  a  puzzling  perplexity  of 
maneuverings.  In  certain  ceremonies,  a  pontifical  mass, 
the  dedication  of  a  church,  the  baptizing  of  a  bell,  the 
blessings  of  oils,  and  some  others,  what  with  the  gro- 
tesque vestments,  the  senseless  sprinklings,  the  unintelli- 
gible chanting,  the  putting  on  and  taking  off  of  hats, 
the  kissing  of  rings  and  thuribles  and  cruets,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  be  devout,  and  most  assuredly  it  is  impossible 
to  discern  anything  of  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testament. 
Yet  to  every  plea  for  sincerity,  reality  and  truth  in  the 
great  matter  of  common  worship,  Rome  turns  a  scornful 


102  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

and  angry  face.  A  Cardinal  Manning  may  implore 
Catholics  to  stop  chanting  litanies  and  chattering  ro- 
saries, lest  they  scandalize  Protestants ;  a  bishop  Bona- 
melli  may  protest  against  the  sickening  vulgarity  of 
picturing  and  worshiping  Christ's  physical  heart;  other 
earnest  men  may  speak  out  against  such  blasphemous 
nonsense  as  "Sweet  Heart  of  Mary,  be  my  salvation" !  or 
such  orgies  of  superstition  as  the  devotion  to  St.  An- 
thony, but  all  in  vain.  Fostered  and  encouraged  by  a 
Papacy  whose  tenure  of  existence  depends  upon  exter- 
nalism  and  perishes  with  growing  personality,  these  ex- 
cesses and  degradations  of  religion  are  secure  beyond 
any  power  of  reformer  or  Modernist  to  destroy  them. 

The  heathenish  credulity  to  which  all  this  leads,  was 
startlingly  and  shamefully  illustrated  when  the  Curia 
from  top  to  bottom  credited  the  insane  revelations  of  the 
pretended  priestess  of  Satan,  Diana  Vaughan,  and  Leo 
XIII  sent  to  her  his  august  and  apostolic  benediction. 
That  the  leaders  of  a  spiritual  religion  should  be  so  sat- 
urated with  superstition  as  to  be  led  into  this  colossal 
hoax,  is  a  fair  warning  of  what  medal-religion,  badge- 
worship,  and  relic-piety  may  produce.  But  the  Papacy 
never  learns.  Though  the  exposure  of  Diana  Vaughan 
is  of  yesterday,  your  Holiness  encourages  the  Philu- 
mena-myth  and  grants  forty  thousand  five  hundred 
years'  indulgence  a  year  for  carrying  the  beads. 

However,  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  these  abuses  stand- 
ing alone  that  I  speak  of  them,  but  for  the  sake  of  the 
fundamental  Roman  error  out  of  which  they  all  proceed, 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  IO3 

and  by  which  they  are  perpetuated.  This  error  lies  in 
misapprehension  and  ignorance  of  developed  human 
personality.  Not  personality,  but  conformity ;  not  the 
outgrowth  of  free  character,  but  the  constant  submission 
to  grinding  authority,  is  the  gospel  according  to  the 
Vatican.  Personality  seeks  reality ;  it  means  immanent 
vigor,  vital  growth.  Conformity  implies  externalism, 
posture,  regularity.  Authority,  Roman  authority,  signi- 
fies not  being,  but  doing ;  not  thinking  as  a  man,  but  fol- 
lowing as  a  sheep.  Personality  looks  for  the  character- 
element  in  all  things — Rome  demands  the  military  ele- 
ment. Personality  submits  when  reason  and  conscience, 
that  is  the  rational  Self,  so  order.  Rome  requires  that 
Self  shall  not  exercise  Self-hood,  but  shall  coerce  itself 
on  the  instant  to  the  behest  of  authority.  Nations  built 
on  the  foundation  of  free  personality  will  and  must  be, 
direct,  simple,  truthful  in  their  religion,  and  will  throw 
off  every  feature  of  religion  which  is  unfavorable  to 
Self-development,  makes  men  passive  instead  of  active, 
spectators  instead  of  co-operators,  machines  instead  of 
human  beings.  On  the  other  hand  a  religion  of  excessive 
authority  regards  not  truth  but  submission  as  primary. 
If  it  approves  a  devotion,  it  is  impertinent  to  ask  if  the 
devotion  have  a  basis  in  truth.  If  it  gives  a  decision,  it 
is  revolutionary  to  inquire  if  conscience  can  approve  it. 
Resistance  it  does  not  educate,  but  excommunicates. 
Free  inquiry  it  anathematizes.  To  scholarship  it  sets  up 
as  a  standard,  not  the  discovery  of  truth,  whether  favor- 
able or  unfavorable  to  authority,  but  the  repression  of 


104  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

every  intellectual  curiosity  which  might  endanger  the  es- 
tablished order.  It  follows  inevitably,  we  have  but  to  open 
our  eyes  to  see  it,  that  the  peoples  most  devoted  to  such 
a  religion  will  be  backward  in  enlightenment,  not  of  the 
first  rank  in  civilization,  mechanical  in  religion,  and 
superstitious  in  devotion.  Superstitious  in  devotion,  I 
say,  for  the  obvious  reason,  that  when  men  are  not 
trained  to  demand  the  character-element  in  worship,  they 
will  sink  back  upon  the  mechanical-element.  They  will 
replace  vital  endeavor  by  the  leaning  upon  some  external 
saving  process,  or  some  outward  salvation-conferring 
thing — the  very  essence  of  superstition. 

It  is  not  then,  your  Holiness,  merely  by  condemning 
any  particular  excess,  such  as  discouraging  miraculous 
medals,  Loretto  houses  and  bones  of  St.  Ann,  though 
even  this  you  refuse  to  do,  but  by  renovating  the  entire 
spirit  of  your  Papal  system,  that  you  can  gratify  your- 
self with  the  hope  of  ever  winning  the  modern  world 
to  Catholicism.  Not  until  free  personality  takes  its 
place  in  the  Catholic  mind,  not  till  character  becomes 
honored  in  Catholic  practice  and  worship,  not  till 
mechanism  is  replaced  by  individuality,  automatic  obedi- 
ence by  endeavor,  and  the  Papacy's  military  discipline 
by  Christ's  inward  kingdom,  can  there  be  aught  but  de- 
feat and  dissolution  in  the  prospect  of  the  Papacy. 

In  conclusion  let  me  say  that  this  letter  may  suggest 
to  your  Holiness  an  explanation  of  the  fact  that  a  ma- 
jority of  the  men  in  Italy,  France,  Spain  and  Mexico, 
turn  away  from  Catholicism  as  soon  as  they  grow  to 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  105 

maturity,  and  turn  away  from  it  all  the  more  decisively 
if  they  have  received  a  modicum  of  education. 

XVII 

The    Present    Discipline    of    Celibacy 

Your  Holiness: 

The  subject  of  this  letter  is  clerical  celibacy  as  it  is 
at  present  enforced  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 
Treating  as  I  have  been  of  the  rights  of  personality, 
and  of  Rome's  iron  tyranny  with  regard  to  them,  I 
cannot  omit  this  topic,  delicate  and  perhaps  dangerous 
as  it  is.  For  in  no  other  matter  has  Rome  shown  a 
more  brutal  despotism  and  a  more  wicked  superstition. 
Efforts  there  have  been  by  both  priesthood  and  laity 
from  the  days  of  Hildebrand  to  our  own,  to  mitigate  the 
present  discipline  of  celibacy ;  but,  as  in  all  other  move- 
ments towards  a  more  spiritual  religion  and  a  more 
rational  rule,  Rome  has  uttered  its  anathema,  and  loaded 
the  reformer  with  foul  insinuation  and  public  disgrace. 
Gregory  XVI  in  the  "Mirari  Vos,"  of  1832,  spits  venom 
"against  that  most  filthy  conspiracy  (foedissimam  con- 
jurationem)  against  clerical  celibacy,  which  is  growing 
every  day,  owing  to  the  agitations  of  the  abandoned 
philosophers  of  our  time,  and  of  some  members  even 
of  the  priesthood,  who,  forgetful  of  their  person  and 
vocation,  and  carried  away  by  sensuality  (blanditiis 
abrepti  voluptatum),  have  dared  to  obtain  from  civil 
rulers  public  and   repeated  petitions   against  this   most 


106  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

holy  discipline."  Pius  IX  likewise  characterizes  priests 
who  have  spoken  in  favor  of  this  reform,  as  men  "over- 
come by  sensuality  and  impurity."  It  is  a  curious  wit- 
ness to  the  pruriency  of  the  Romanized  mind  that  one 
cannot  speak  one's  convictions  on  a  matter  of  purely 
ecclesiastical  discipline,  without  being  branded  as  a 
blackguard.  It  is  strange  too  that  a  man  should  be 
stigmatized  as  a  sensualist,  who  happens  to  agree  on 
this  point  with  the  author  of  the  first  epistle  to  Timothy, 
with  the  Church's  practice  in  its  first  glorious  age,  and 
with  that  wise  celibate  who  dissuaded  the  Council  of 
Nicaea  from  imposing  celibacy  in  the  manner  which 
prevails  now.  But  to  this  it  has  come  that  a  decent 
man  exposes  himself  to  the  attacks  of  the  filthy,  from 
Pope  to  peasant,  if  he  ventures  to  utter  what  study  and 
experience  have  taught  him  in  this  matter.  Upon  a 
man  of  honor,  conscious  of  cleanness,  jealous  of  in- 
tegrity, these  furious  and  foul  incriminations  inflict  a 
most  grievous  pain.  But  some  one  must  take  up  the  re- 
former's cause,  someone  who  is  convinced  that  the 
present  mode  of  enforcing  celibacy  is  in  principle  wild 
superstition  and  in  practice  an  appalling  disaster.  And 
since  in  these  letters  I  am  giving  voice  to  reform,  let  me 
speak  for  reform  on  this  point  also,  though  in  doing  so 
I  must  be  the  recipient  of  that  very  Christ-like  Papal 
charity  which  consigns  me  to  the  company  of  rakes  and 
voluptuaries. 

Celibacy  is  one  of  those  features  of  religion  that  can- 
not be  understood  until   something  is  known  of  what 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  IO7 

may  be  called  their  natural  history.  It  is  a  survival  of 
primitive  religion,  and  has  its  basis  in  one  of  those  fan- 
tastic aberrations  which  make  the  history  of  uncivilized 
and  semi-civilized  religions  so  fascinating,  so  curious, 
and  so  wild.  True,  Christianity  from  the  beginning,  and 
the  New  Testament  itself,  regarded  celibacy  as  essen- 
tially and  intrinsically  higher  than  marriage,  which  they 
tolerate  as  hardly  anything  else  than  a  concession  to  the 
animal  nature  of  man.  But  Christianity  in  this  respect 
as  in  so  many  others,  was  influenced  by  that  vast  accumu- 
lation of  ideas  which  ethnic  religions  had  been  deposit- 
ing for  thousands  of  years.  Christianity  it  must  be  kept 
in  mind,  is  not  totally  unrelated  to  the  general  history 
of  religion.  It  was  born  and  was  originally  propagated 
in  the  midst  of  a  society  through  which  flowed  religious 
currents  that  took  their  rise  in  ancient  Babylon,  Egypt, 
Persia,  Asia  Minor,  Greece  and  Rome,  and  had  to  touch 
these  currents.  Not  only  so,  but  from  the  very  fact  of 
its  being  a  religion  it  is  not  without  kinship  with  the 
religions  of  barbarians  and  savages.  Let  no  one  think 
this  shocking.  I  hold  as  firmly  as  any  other  man,  that 
Christianity  is  the  divinest  form  of  faith  that  humanity 
can  know.  But  this  cannot  blind  one  to  the  obvious,  nay 
to  the  necessary  fact,  that  it  owes  much  to  pre-existing 
faiths,  and  that  in  moving  through  the  Graeco-Roman 
world  its  garments  caught  both  some  of  the  luster  and 
some  of  the  stains  of  the  contiguous  civilization.  It 
could  not  otherwise  live  among  men,  nor  occupy  a  place, 
in  human  history.     Why,  as  soon  as   Christianity  was 


108  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

preached  to  the  Greek  world,  Chrst  had  to  be  announced 
no  longer  as  Messiah,  for  this  was  a  Jewish  idea  utterly 
uninteresting  if  not  unintelligible  to  non-Jews,  but  as 
Logos,  the  Word  of  God,  the  Son  of  God.  What  is  this 
but  undergoing  adaptation,  so  as  to  fit  in  with  pre-exist- 
ing conceptions?  Now  this  process  of  absorbing  ex- 
traneous elements  is  immensely  wider  and  deeper  than 
most  of  us  imagine.  It  is  a  process  indeed  which  appears 
in  the  most  conspicuous  and  undeniable  manner  in  ritual, 
devotion,  theology  and  dogma.  All  these  have  traces  of 
pre-Christian,  and  pagan  thought.  Some  of  these  in- 
fluences are  sound,  others  are  unsound,  but  deny  them 
we  cannot.  Let  me  suggest  a  few  striking  resemblances 
between  Christianity  and  other  religions.  They  will 
serve  as  a  basis  for  a  better  understanding  of  this  subject 
of  celibacy. 

Christianity  possesses  an  elaborate  devil-doctrine.  The 
New  Testament  is  full  of  possession-cases,  and  attributes 
physical  ills  to  the  indwelling  demon.  Men  were  or- 
dained in  the  early  church  and  are  ordained  to-day  to 
the  office  of  exorcists,  drivers-out  of  evil  spirits.  Now 
these  ideas  at  which  the  modern  world  is  inclined  to 
smile,  are  as  old  as  humanity. 

Uncultivated  man  lives  in  abiding  terror  of  malignant 
powers.  Every  misfortune  is  due  to  them.  Every  step 
brings  one  into  peril  of  them.  They  must  be  charmed, 
coaxed  or  driven  away  by  men  especially  set  apart  to 
that  holy  office.  So  we  find  the  world  over  just  such  a 
demonology,  in  essential  features,  as  is  contained  in  the 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  IOO, 

New  Testament,  and  in  Catholic  faith  and  practice.  In 
Australia  the  natives  on  the  occasion  of  pestilence,  or 
other  misfortunes,  go  about  beating  the  ground  with 
clubs  to  drive  away  the  devils  that  have  caused  the 
mischief.  In  the  Celebes  the  exorcism  takes  the  form 
of  armed  men,  pounding  the  earth  with  their  weapons 
while  the  priests,  bearing  holy  fire,  march  nine  times 
around  each  afflicted  house.  The  Esquimaux  fire  guns, 
hoping  thus  to  terrify  the  dark  spirits.  In  Guinea  the 
priests  exorcise  by  sprinkling  rum,  the  devil  that  has 
produced  barrenness  in  a  woman.  The  Guinea  negroes 
have  a  solemn  eight-day  exorcism  every  year.  The 
Australians  too  have  annual  devil  expulsions.  The 
lights  at  a  Chinese  wedding  are  in  dacmonis  terrorem. 
Among  the  Cherokees,  seven  exorcists  beat  the  obsessed 
house  with  rods.  In  Greece  insanity  and  epilepsy  were 
attributed  to  the  foul  fiend.  The  very  word  epilepsy — 
€ni\r]\(/K  (seizing)  shows  this.  The  Romans  too  had 
their  devils  and  their  exorcists.  In  Babylonia  the 
exorcists  formed  a  powerful  order  of  priests  who  had 
their  books  of  sacred  formulas  which  the  candidate  for 
their  office  was  obliged  to  study  and  learn.  Among  the 
material  agencies  in  Babylonian  exorcism  were  fire,  holy 
water  and  holy  oil.  Finally  the  Zoroastrian  religion, 
which  had  so  great  an  influence  on  late  Judaism  and 
early  Christianity,  had  a  demonology  of  immense  pro- 
portions. Now  when  we  see  Christianity  born  to  the 
inheritance  of  this  universal  religious  conception,  when 
we  find  the  Gospels  attributing  sickness   to  devils,   St, 


IIO  LETTERS  TO   HIS  HOLINESS 

Paul  declaring  that  the  very  air  is  full  of  them,  and  early 
Christianity  setting  up  a  body  of  ministers  to  expel  them, 
shall  we  be  so  stubborn  as  to  say  that  Christianity  was 
uninfluenced  by  extraneous  ideas?  The  world  of  devils, 
the  swarming  myriads  of  them  have  disappeared.  We 
now  call  in  not  the  exorcist  but  the  physician  to  an 
epileptic.  We  no  longer  believe  that  devils  inhabit  "dry 
places" — a  peculiarly  Oriental  idea,  born  out  of  dread 
for  the  mysterious  awesomeness  of  the  desert.  The  once 
busy  exorcists  in  the  church,  have  now  absolutely  noth- 
ing in  the  way  of  exorcism  to  do.  In  other  words,  we 
have  grown  away  from  a  New  Testament  notion  which 
we  perceive  was  sprung  from  superstition  and  pre- 
Christian  paganism. 

Associated  with  belief  in  all-pervading  bad  spirits  is 
the  idea  of  good  guardian-spirits,  guardian  angels.  This 
too  is  not  of  Christian  origin.  The  Australian  savage 
believes  that  the  first  man  he  kills  becomes  his  guardian, 
taking  up  residence  near  his  liver.  The  African  and 
Mongolian  offer  food  and  drink  to  their  patron-spirits. 
The  Caribs  held  that  each  man  had  a  ghostly  guardian 
who  accompanied  him  all  through  this  life  and  the  next. 
The  North  American  Indians  and  the  Araucanians  of 
Chile  had  a  similar  faith. 

The  Romans  were  devoted  to  their  genius  natalis,  whose 
image  they  kept,  and  worshipped  on  their  birthday  with 
incense  and  song.  And  according  to  Menander  every 
man  has  his  good  demon.  The  instance  of  the  admonish- 
ing Saifjiwv  of  Socrates   is  a  striking  case  to  the  point. 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  III 

Catholicism  has  feasts  of  the  dead,  and  prayers  for 
them  and  to  them.  The  practice  prevailed  before  Cathol- 
icism was  born.  The  Kol  tribes  pray  to  the  dead  for 
help.  The  Chinese  have  elaborate  festivals  of  the  dead, 
and  even  feasts  for  the  neglected  dead.  Feasts  are  made 
at  graves  in  India,  Madagascar  and  West  Africa,  some- 
what in  the  manner  of  the  early  Christian  feasts  at  the 
graves  of  martyrs.  The  Tasmanians  beseech  the  dead  to 
cure  sickness.  In  divers  necessities  the  dead  are  in- 
voked in  Ceylon,  Guinea  and  Siam.  According  to  Zulu 
theology  the  dead  preside  over  the  issue  of  war.  The 
Karen  tribes  celebrate  a  great  festival  of  the  departed 
in  December,  the  Bengalese  and  West  Africans  at  har- 
vest-time, the  Haiti  negroes  at  the  end  of  the  year,  and 
the  East  Africans  in  November.  The  Romans  hallowed 
the  memory  of  the  dead  at  the  Feralia  and  Lemuralia  in 
February  and  May.  The  Persian  Zoroastrians  held 
solemn  services  for  the  deceased  on  the  third  and  seventh 
day  after  death. 

The  ceremonial  cutting  of  the  hair  is  the  first  step  in 
Holy  Orders  according  to  the  ritual  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  A  mysterious  regard  for  the  hair  is  a  wide- 
spread feature  in  primitive  superstition.  The  Frankish 
kings  never  cut  their  hair.  Nor  did  the  Aztec  priests. 
The  priests  of  the  Celebes  considered  it  sacrilege  to  cut 
their  hair  during  the  time  of  their  sacerdotal  functions. 
A  Malay  will  not  cut  his  hair  during  his  wife's  pregnancy. 
A  Maori  is  tabooed  as  being  under  unseen  influences 
for  some  days  after  his  hair-cutting.     The  hair  of  the 


112  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

Talutians  is  buried  in  the  temple.  The  priests  of  south- 
west Africa  offer  sacrifices  to  the  shorn  locks  of  the  king. 
The  tresses  of  the  Vestal  virgins  were  hung  on  the  lotus- 
tree.  The  Marquesans,  as  also  the  ancient  Saxons,  did 
not  cut  their  hair  while  under  a  vow  of  revenge,  a  super- 
stition which  calls  to  mind  the  Nazarite  vow  of  the  Old 
Testament. 

The  practice  of  fasting  too,  belongs  to  aboriginal  re- 
ligion. Its  purpose  on  the  beginning  seems  to  have  been 
to  become  possessed  of  a  divine  spirit,  this  possession 
being  directly  prepared  for,  it  was  thought,  by  the  giddi- 
ness and  weakness  caused  by  the  fast.  The  North  Amer- 
ican Indian  Medicine-men  were  prodigious  fasters.  In 
Haiti  a  postulant  for  the  sorcerer's  office  undergoes 
fasting  as  a  primary  part  of  his  novitiate.  A  Zulu  medi- 
cine-man makes  ready  for  his  communication  with  the 
divine  spirit  by  fasting  and  flagellation.  The  priest  of 
Guiana  practices  the  same  mortification.  The  Pythian 
priestess  at  Delphi  fasted  before  she  prophesied.  None 
have  ever  surpassed  the  Indian  Yogi  for  fasting.  The 
Medicine-man  of  the  Winnebagos  fasted  for  three  days 
before  he  was  invested  with  the  plenary  powers  of  his 
office. 

The  Catholic  Church  has  holy  water,  and  various 
forms  of  purification.  These  too  are  an  inheritance  from 
the  immemorial  past.  The  Yumanos  of  Brazil  sprinkled 
a  child  with  a  decoction  from  holy  herbs.  In  New 
Zealand  the  priest  sprinkled  or  immersed  the  child  on  the 
eighth  day  after  birth.     In  Sarac  the  infant  three  days 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  113 

from  birth  was  washed  in  holy  water.  The  Mandingo 
baptism  took  place  three  days  after  birth  and  consisted 
in  the  priest's  spitting  three  times  upon  the  child's  face. 
In  Guinea  the  head  man  of  the  village  sprinkles  the 
infant  and  gives  it  a  name.  The  Hottentots  pour  water 
upon  both  mother  and  child.  The  Basuto  priest  pre- 
pares holy  water  with  which  he  asperses  the  people  at 
public  purification.  A  Peruvian  child  was  ceremonially 
bathed  after  birth  and  the  water  buried  while  the  priest 
recited  charms.  The  Inca  of  Peru  confessed  his  sins, 
and  then  bathed  in  the  river,  saying:  "O  River,  receive 
the  sins  I  have  this  day  confessed  to  the  sun,  and  carry 
them  to  the  sea."  Another  Peruvian  custom  was  that 
the  nurse  first  implored  the  god  to  descend  into  the  water 
with  which  the  child  was  to  be  washed,  that  the  evil 
might  be  driven  out  of  him.  Lustration  was  a  daily 
ceremony  in  Aztec  Mexico.  The  religious  laving  of 
children  prevails  in  Japan,  China  and  Mongolia.  In 
Thibet  the  lama  blesses  the  water,  immerses  the  child 
three  times  and  gives  it  a  name.  The  Romans  had  the 
custom  of  lustration  and  name-giving.  At  the  doors  of 
a  Greek  house  of  mourning  was  placed  water  that  those 
coming  out  from  the  presence  of  death  might  purify 
themselves.  Before  the  Roman  temples  was  set  a  holy- 
water  vessel  with  a  sprinkler.  Evidently  many  of  the 
Romans  attributed  a  sin-forgiving  efficacy  to  this  water 
for  Ovid  reproves  them  for  the  superstition. 

The  use  of  incense  is  of  neither  Christian  nor  Jewish 
origin.     Herodotus  tells  us  that  the  Babylonians  burned 


114  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

a  thousand  talents'  worth  of  incense  on  the  yearly  festival 
of  Bel  before  the  god's  golden  altar.  Three  times  a  day 
the  Egyptian  priests  entered  the  temple  to  burn  incense 
before  the  god.  Incense  was  in  daily  use  before  the 
Aztec  altars,  and  was,  or  is,  employed  in  the  liturgy  of 
the  Greeks,  Romans,  Chinese  and  Zulus. 

The  Catholic  priest  "churches"  women,  that  is,  gives 
them  a  special  blessing  after  childbirth.  This  is  a  di- 
rect inheritance  from  the  Levitical  law  which  regarded 
women  at  such  time  as  unclean.  The  Jews  got  this 
horrible  and  abominable  idea  from  pagan  sources ;  for 
throughout  the  world  we  find  heathen  religions  account- 
ing women  after  childbirth  as  "unclean,"  that  is,  according 
to  the  original  meaning  of  the  term,  dangerous,  taboo, 
under  potent  influences  of  evil.  Many  savages  will  not 
even  look  upon  a  woman  during  the  time  of  her  puri- 
fication, lest  the  evil  spirits  about  her  will  enter  them 
and  cause  them  to  waste  away. 

Even  a  notion  which  looms  so  large  in  our  theology 
as  vicarious  atonement  had  thoroughly  penetrated  the 
minds  of  men,  before  Christian  influences  could  possibly 
have  reached  them.  That  understanding  of  personality 
and  individual  responsibility  of  which  these  letters  have 
had  so  much  to  say  is  of  late  advent  into  the  human 
mind.  In  lower  stages  of  civilization  men  look  for  some- 
one else  to  bear  their  stripes  and  assume  their  sins.  Thus 
among  the  California  Indians,  a  band  of  men  dressed 
up  as  devils  every  seventh  year,  and  were  driven  forth, — 
all  evils  going  with  them, — by  the  infuriated  people.    A 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  115 

similar  custom  exists  in  Queensland  and  the  Mandan 
Islands.  In  Nigeria  two  men  were  killed  to  take  away 
the  sins  of  the  tribe.  In  the  Greek  colony  of  Marseilles, 
when  pestilence  arose,  a  man  was  clothed  in  sacred  gar- 
ments and  driven  off,  the  people  praying  that  all  their  ills 
might  be  upon  his  head.  The  Athenians  sacrificed  a  man 
during  plague,  and  every  year  in  the  month  of  May  put 
to  death  two  victims  for  the  people.  In  no  heathen  re- 
ligion does  this  subversive  superstition  descend  lower  than 
in  the  custom  thus  described  in  the  Old  Testament :  "And 
he  shall  take  of  the  congregation  of  the  children  of  Israel 
two  he-goats  for  a  sin-offering  and  one  ram  for  a  burnt- 
offering.  .  .  .  And  (Aaron)  shall  take  the  goats,  and 
set  them  before  the  Lord  at  the  door  of  the  tent  of  meet- 
ing. And  Aaron  shall  cast  lots  upon  the  two  goats,  one 
lot  for  the  Lord  and  the  other  lot  for  Azazel.  And  Aaron 
shall  present  the  goat  upon  which  the  lot  fell  for  the 
Lord  and  offer  him  for  a  sin-offering.  But  the  goat 
on  which  the  lot  fell  for  Azazel  shall  be  set  alive  before 
the  Lord,  to  make  atonement  for  him,  to  send  him  away 
for  Azazel  into  the  wilderness.  .  .  .  And  when 
(Aaron)  hath  made  an  end  of  atoning  for  the  holy  place, 
and  the  tent  of  meeting  and  the  altar,  he  shall  present  the 
live  goat;  and  Aaron  shall  lay  both  his  hands  upon  the 
head  of  the  live  goat,  and  confess  over  him  all  the  in- 
iquities of  the  children  of  Israel  and  all  their  transgres- 
sions, even  all  their  sins,  and  he  shall  put  them  upon  the 
head  of  the  goat,  and  shall  send  him  away  by  the  hand 
of  a  man  that  is  in  readiness  into  the  wilderness ;  and  the 


Il6  LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 

goat  shall  bear  upon  him  all  their  iniquities  into  a  soli- 
tary land." — (Leviticus,  c-16.) 

To  go  a  step  further,  we  must  acknowledge  that  the 
killing  of  a  special  representative  or  incarnation  of  Deity 
and  his  subsequent  resurrection  occupied  a  remarkably 
large  place  in  pre-Christian  theology,  and  were  particu- 
larly important  in  Asia  Minor  and  Greece  at  the  very 
period  when  Christian  theology  began  to  take  shape  there. 
The  Aztecs  had  the  custom  of  giving  the  name  of  a  god 
to  a  man  at  certain  times,  dressing  him  to  an  exact  re- 
semblance of  the  god-image,  worshipping  him,  and  then 
killing  and  eating  him.  Again  at  one  of  their  Spring 
festivals,  near  the  time  of  our  Easter,  a  young  man  was 
made  the  god  Tezcatlitcoa.  For  a  year  he  was  adored 
as  such.  Then,  on  the  festival  day  of  the  succeeding  year, 
he  was  led  into  the  temple,  and  a  priest  cut  out  his  heart 
and  offered  it  to  the  sun.  The  ceremony  concluded  with 
the  eating  of  the  divine  victim's  legs  and  arms.  The 
Aztecs,  moreover,  whose  religion  is  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting in  the  world,  celebrated  a  great  annual  feast 
of  Toci,  the  mother  of  the  gods,  at  which  a  woman 
who  had  sometime  previously  been  given  the  goddess' 
name  was  beheaded.  All  these  victims  were  flayed,  and 
the  priests  clothed  themselves  with  their  skins,  and  came 
out  before  the  people,  whereat  all  cried :  "Behold  our 
Gods !"  The  Egyptians  celebrated  the  death  of  divine 
Osiris,  with  five  days  of  mourning,  followed  by  a  day 
of  joy  and  pageantry  with  processions  bearing  the  god's 
image.    The  great  spring-festival  in  Phrygia  was  in  com- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  117 

memoration  of  Attis,  one  account  of  whom  says  he  was 
born  of  a  virgin,  who  conceived  by  putting  a  ripe  almond 
in  her  bosom.  For  three  days  his  death  was  mourned ; 
on  the  fourth,  his  resurrection  was  exultantly  celebrated. 
The  Adonis  mysteries  in  Syria  were  very  similar  to  this. 
The  Cretans  held  a  biennial  festival  in  honor  of  Dionysus, 
one  story  of  whom  says  that  after  his  tragic  death  he 
descended  into  Hades  to  bring  back  his  mother  Semele, 
and  then  ascended  into  Heaven.  The  Greeks  also  held 
high  festival  in  memory  of  Proserpine's  return  from  the 
kingdom  of  Pluto.  In  the  Attis  mysteries  when  the  priest 
appeared  bearing  a  light,  to  announce  the  god's  resurrec- 
tion, the  people  said :  "Have  confidence,  believers,  in  God 
the  savior ;  for  he  will  be  our  salvation  from  evil." 

dappeire,   /xv(TTai  tov  Otov  (Ttawfxevov 
ecrrai  yap  ijfUV  £K  ttovwv  crwTrjpia. 

The  killing  of  the  king,  as  a  special  incarnation  of 
divinity  was  widespread  in  the  ancient  world ;  though  in 
the  process  of  time,  a  substitute  victim  came  to  be  im- 
molated. Thus  in  upper  Egypt  the  regular  government 
was  suspended  for  three  days  in  September,  every  town 
chose  a  ruler  who  assumed  kingly  honors,  even  going 
into  the  palace  and  pretending  to  depose  the  real  king. 
On  the  fourth  day  he  was  sentenced  to  death.  At  the 
wonderful  Babylonian  carnival  of  the  Sacaea,  a  criminal 
was  arrayed  in  royal  robes,  entered  the  palace  as  its 
sovereign,  and  took  possession  even  of  the  king's  concu- 
bines. After  a  few  days  he  was  put  to  death  either  upon 
the  gallows  or  a  cross. 


Il8  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

In  many  religions,  very  notably  in  the  Oriental  and 
Greek  mystery-cults  that  flourished  about  the  cradle  of 
Christianity,  the  incorporation  of  the  god  with  the  be- 
liever was  effected  by  a  sacramental  eating  of  the  god. 
Even  among  the  Creek  Indians  we  find  a  suggestion  of 
this.  Just  before  the  Creek  festival  of  the  first  fruits  of 
the  new  harvest,  they  extinguished  every  fire  in  the  vil- 
lage, and  destroyed  the  remnants  of  the  food  of  the  pre- 
ceding year.  The  warriors  then  went  to  the  public  square 
for  a  fast  of  two  nights  and  a  day,  after  which  they  drank 
an  emetic  and  a  purgative  that  they  might  be  wholly  clean 
for  the  new  divine  food  of  first  fruits.  The  fast  over, 
the  priest  lit  the  new  fire  and  placed  it  on  the  altar.  To 
the  holy  fire-spirit  some  of  the  first  fruits  were  offered, 
and  the  priest  made  announcement  that  the  new  fire 
atoned  for  all  the  sins  of  the  past  year.  Whereupon  the 
women  carried  the  new  fire  to  their  hearths,  cooked  the 
first  fruits  over  it,  and  the  ceremony  ended  with  a  joyous 
feast. 

The  Aztecs  had  two  extraordinarily  interesting  god- 
eating  days,  one  in  May,  the  other  in  December.  Two 
days  before  the  May  festival,  the  virgins  of  the  convent 
made  an  image  of  the  god  in  dough.  This  was  carried 
to  the  temple  on  the  festival,  preceded  by  the  virgins — 
sisters  of  the  god  Vitzilipuztli,  they  were  called — clad 
in  white  and  wearing  crowns  of  maize.  The  god  was 
brought  into  the  temple  while  the  people  stood  about  in 
awe,  and  placed  in  a  bower  of  roses.  At  its  foot  were 
heaped  a  large  number  of  smaller  breads  made  of  the 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  II9 

same  dough  as  the  idol.  Then  ensued  a  stately  proces- 
sion, the  priests  and  ministers  wearing  divers  holy  gar- 
ments and  bedecked  with  flowers.  The  breads  were 
solemnly  blessed  and  worshipped.  At  mid-day  the  entire 
village,  having  fasted  rigidly  up  to  this,  partook  of  the 
holy  elements,  in  a  spirit  of  profound  worship.  Even 
the  children  shared  in  the  communion,  and  morsels  were 
taken  to  the  sick.  In  the  December  celebration,  an  image 
of  the  god  Huitzilopachtli,  made  of  seeds  that  had  been 
kneaded  with  the  blood  of  children,  was  placed  upon  the 
altar  and  incensed  by  the  king.  On  the  following  day  a 
priest  drove  a  knife  into  the  image,  to  kill  the  god.  The 
heart  was  cut  out  and  given  to  the  king.  After  this  all 
males,  but  no  women,  partook  of  the  fragments.  The 
Aztec  name  for  this  ceremony  signifies,  "God  is  eaten." 

The  Egyptians  killed  the  bull-god  Apis,  and  the  divine 
ram  of  Amon  every  year.  A  remarkable  pyramid-text 
gives  us  to  understand  that  union  with  godhead  through 
eating  was  a  familiar  idea  to  the  Egyptians.  This  text 
thus  describes  how  a  deceased  Pharaoh  became  a  god: 
"His  servants  bound  the  gods  with  ropes,  dragged  them 
down,  transpierced  their  throat,  disemboweled  them  and 
cooked  them  in  kettles.  And  the  Pharaoh  devoured  their 
strength  and  ate  their  souls.  The  greatest  gods  formed 
his  breakfast,  the  gods  of  middle  degree  his  dinner,  and 
the  lowest  gods  his  supper.  ...  He  became  an  heir 
of  power,  above  all  other  heirs,  he  became  the  Lord  of 
heaven     ...     he  ate  the  wisdom  of  each  god,"  etc. 

But  it  is  in  the  Graeco-Oriental  mystery-cults  that  we 


120  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

find  the  most  extraordinary  aspirations  after  this  organic 
union  with  Divinity.  "Come  to  me  Lord  Hermes,"  says 
a  prayer  in  a  papyrus  in  the  British  Museum,  "as  a  child 
comes  into  the  womb  of  its  mother."  (Cf.  Kenyon  Cox: 
"Greek  Papyri  in  the  British  Museum.")  "Thou  art  I," 
it  goes  on,  "and  I  am  Thou.  Thy  name  is  mine ;  mine  is 
Thine.  I  am  thy  image."  Oneness  with  godhead  is  a 
constant  theme  and  aspiration  with  the  Neo-Platonists. 

And  this  union,  this  OzovpyiK-rj  evwo-is,  was  achieved  in 
the  mysteries  by  a  sacramental  meal.  The  holy  liquid 
taken  in  the  Mithraic  sacrament  conferred  a  glorious 
immortality,  as  did  likewise  the  bull's  blood  which  was  so 
important  an  element  in  the  sacramental  system  of 
Mithraism.  Divine  union  through  a  religious  meal  was 
obtained  also  in  the  mysteries  of  Attis,  Samothrace  and 
Dionysus.  And  the  theory  is  all  but  proved,  that  the 
earliest  idea  underlying  animal  sacrifices  is  union  with 
the  god  through  eating  the  flesh  of  the  divine  animal. 

I  have  instanced  these  analogies  between  Christianity 
and  other  religions,  and  the  list  might  be  greatly  length- 
ened, not  to  insist  that  resemblance  implies  dependence 
in  every  case,  but  merely  to  establish  a  statement  made 
earlier  in  this  letter,  that  Christianity  found  men  already 
richly  furnished  with  religious  beliefs  and  practices  of 
which  it  took  unto  itself  a  large  number,  highly  purifying 
some,  and  leaving  others  in  all  their  pagan  crudity  and 
falseness.  Few  men  of  cultivated  minds  will  not  regret 
that  we  have  holy  water  for  driving  away  the  devils,  as 
the  Romans,  Zoroastrians  and  Babylonians  had;  or  that 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  121 

the  Church  keeps  on  heathenishly  considering  women 
unclean  after  they  have  gone  through  the  travail  of  ma- 
ternity, which,  to  civilized  men,  makes  them  sacred ;  or 
that  blessed  candles  are  officially  declared  to  be  a  safe- 
guard against  demons ;  or  that  such  prominence  is  given 
to  so  puerile  an  adjunct  as  the  divers  forms  of  holy  oil. 
On  the  other  hand,  though  the  Mithraists  and  initiates 
of  Attis  had  a  form  of  baptism  and  eucharist,  the  re- 
ligious mind  takes  no  offense  that  similar  sacraments 
exist  in  Christianity.  For  these  things,  so  expressive  of, 
and  so  adapted  to  the  highest  needs  of  the  soul,  are 
worthy  in  themselves,  and,  rationally  understood,  are  a 
support  and  encouragement  of  religious  life.  The  other 
things, — devil-terrifying  water  and  candles,  belief  that 
motherhood  involves  uncleanness,  and  all  such,  are 
abominable  superstitions, — and  whether  we  find  them  in 
the  Bible  or  not,  the  mature  mind  and  spirit  of  man 
cannot  tolerate  them. 

The  conclusion  then  being,  as  I  think  fair  minds  will 
consider  perfectly  clear,  that  Christianity  has  adopted 
certain  pre-existing  pagan  ideas,  some  degraded  and  some 
noble,  I  come  now  to  the  matter  of  celibacy,  which  as 
now  enforced,  I  maintain  is  among  the  most  revolting 
survivals  of  pagan  superstition,  and  one  of  the  worst 
brutalities  of  Papal  Rome.  Two  very  primitive  ideas  lie 
at  the  basis  of  the  religious  practice  of  celibacy ;  the  first, 
that  offerings  which  cost  most  to  the  giver  are  most 
pleasing  to  the  gods ;  the  second,  that  the  sexual  relation 
is  pre-eminently  sacrum,  i.  e.,  attended  with  spirit-influ- 


122  LETTERS  TO   HIS  HOLINESS 

ences,  and  likely  under  certain  conditions  to  result  in 
great  evil.  Sacrum  in  the  sense  of  dangerous,  obnoxious 
to  unseen  powers,  is  the  basic  idea  of  "unclean."  Con- 
tinence therefore  as  a  precious  gift  to  the  gods,  and  sec- 
ondly as  avoiding  uncleanness,  in  the  primitive  sense  of 
the  word,  became  a  widespread  custom ;  for  savage  and 
semi-savage  man  believes  that  his  gods  must  be  pro- 
pitiated at  whatever  cost  to  himself,  and  has  an  awesome 
respect  for  the  taboo.  Thus  we  find  a  widely  prevailing 
custom  of  sacrificing  the  first-born  not  only  of  animals 
but  of  men.  Every  first-born  child  in  Israel  belonged  to 
the  Lord  and  had  to  be  redeemed  by  a  temple  offering, 
no  doubt  a  mitigation  of  a  primitive  Hebrew  custom  of 
slaying  the  child,  as  we  may  gather  from  the  incident  of 
Abraham  and  Isaac.  So  the  sacrifice  of  the  entire  grati- 
fication of  the  sexual  impulse  was  held  to  be  an  offering 
of  high  value  to  the  gods. 

Total  or  partial  continence  for  one  or  other  of  the  two 
reasons  just  mentioned  is  world-wide.  To  give  only  a 
very  few  instances ;  during  prayers  for  rain  in  Java, 
the  householders  and  their  servants  remained  continent. 
The  Natchez  Indian  observed  the  same  discipline  for  six 
months  after  his  first  scalp.  The  Australian  warriors 
are  continent  during  war.  The  priest  of  Southeast  Africa 
must  be  continent  a  month  before  the  sacrifice  to  the  hair 
of  the  king.  The  prophetesses  of  Argos  were  bound  to 
chastity ;  and  the  institution  of  virgins  among  the  Ro- 
mans and  the  Aztecs  is  well  known.  Even  the  supreme 
sacrifice  of  celibacy, — the  revolting  rite  of  castration, — 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  1 23 

prevailed  to  an  enormous  extent  in  the  old  pagan  world. 
It  was  common  in  the  cult  of  Astarte,  Bellona,  Dea 
Syria,  Attis  and  Cybele.  Those  who  imposed  this  pen- 
ance upon  themselves  were  generally  young  men  who 
thus  consecrated  themselves  as  they  thought,  in  all  purity 
and  generosity  to  the  service  of  the  god. 

The  consecration  of  Egyptian  priests  was  expressed  by 
circumcision,  which  probably  was  only  a  mitigation  of  a 
far  more  grievous  mutilation  in  earlier  times.  So  fre- 
quent became  self-castration  in  the  Graeco-Oriental  mys- 
teries, that  Roman  law  had  to  take  cognizance  of  it,  and 
under  Domitian  the  practice  was  legally  forbidden.  Had 
we  no  other  information  upon  the  extent  of  this  species 
of  asceticism  in  the  Roman  world,  the  constant  reference 
to  it  in  the  literature  of  the  period  would  be  enough  to 
prove  that  it  had  become  an  evil  of  menacing  proportions. 
Were  the  subject  one  which  admitted  of  quotations  con- 
cerning it,  I  might  fill  more  than  one  page  with  relevant 
matter  from  Juvenal,  Catullus,  Martial,  Prudentius,  and 
others.  But  I  will  content  myself  with  the  following 
few  words  from  the  Christian  "Passion  of  St.  Sym- 
phorianus":  "in  cujus  sacris  excisas  corporum  vires  cas- 
trati  adolescentes  infaustae  imagini  exultantes  illidunt,  et 
exsecrandum  facinus  pro  grandi  sacrificio  ducitis." 

In  the  very  regions  then  in  which  Christian  belief  be- 
gan to  take  fixed  shape,  and  at  the  same  time  also,  the 
idea,  sprung  from  superstition,  had  gained  not  only  a 
place,  but  a  pre-enlinent  place,  that  the  higher  consecra- 
tion   to    divine    service    demanded    absolute    continence. 


124  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

Coming  now  to  the  land  itself  where  Christianity  began, 
we  discover  that  here  too  the  notion  had  got  itself  as- 
sociated with  the  loftier  piety.  For  although  virginity  for 
its  own  sake  is  utterly  repugnant  to  the  Old  Testament, 
belief  in  it  had  entered  Judaism  from  extraneous  sources 
in  an  age  of  notable  religious  syncretism,  and  had  become 
a  cardinal  doctrine  of  the  Essenes,  who  in  the  time  of  our 
Lord  enjoyed  a  great  reputation  for  sanctity.  The  one 
or  two  texts  on  the  matter  attributed  to  Christ  are  very 
guarded,  are  so  moderate  indeed  that  they  cannot  possibly 
be  fairly  invoked  in  support  of  the  present  Roman  disci- 
pline ;  but,  if  we  take  them  as  Christ's  real  words,  they 
leave  no  doubt  that  he  held  to  the  Essenian  view.  I  shall 
discuss  in  another  letter  the  very  delicate  question  as  to 
how  far  we  are  absolutely  bound  by  all  the  words  at- 
tributed to  our  Lord.  For  the  present  let  me  say,  I  trust 
not  irreverently,  that  the  Founder  of  our  religion  held 
to  an  extreme  and  impossible  asceticism.  Certainly  if 
the  world  took  "no  thought  of  tomorrow,"  and  flung  it- 
self into  the  arms  of  Providence  hoping  that  God  would 
feed  men  as  He  feeds  the  sparrows  of  the  air,  and  clothe 
them  as  He  clothes  the  lilies  of  the  field,  there  would  be 
an  end  of  civilization.  And,  furthermore,  primitive 
Christianity,  St.  Paul  in  a  notable  degree  and  our  Lord 
Himself,  if  the  eschatology  of  the  Gospels  be  His,  were 
under  the  impression  which  also  was  taken  over  from 
pre-existing  Jewish  ideas,  that  the  end  of  the  world  and 
the  glorious  advent  of  the  heavenly  Messianic  era  were 
close  at  hand.     They  believed  in  those  days  that  "this 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  125 

generation  shall  not  pass  till  these  things  be" ;  that, 
"Some  standing  here  shall  not  taste  death  till  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven  come";  that,  "Watch,  and  pray,  for  ye 
know  not  the  day  nor  the  hour,"  was  a  final  warning; 
that,  "We  that  are  alive,  that  are  left  unto  the  coming  of 
the  Lord,  shall  in  nowise  precede  them  that  are  fallen 
asleep.  For  the  Lord  himself  shall  descend  from  Heaven 
with  a  shout,  with  the  voice  of  the  archangel  and  with 
the  trump  of  God ;  and  the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first ; 
then  we  that  are  alive,  that  are  left,  shall  together  with 
them  be  caught  up  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the 
air,"  were  words  as  of  the  last  moments  of  the  eleventh 
hour.  No  wonder  those  who  thus  believed  counseled 
utter  disregard  of  all  things  earthly,  and  preached  a  pov- 
erty, an  improvidence  and  a  disregard  for  marriage  which 
do  not  fit  in  with  an  age  that  looks  no  longer  for  a 
thaumaturgic  catastrophe,  falling  stars,  darkened  suns,  an 
archangel's  trumpet  and  the  Messiah  descending  through 
the  air. 

Must  we  not  admit  that  possibly  in  this  matter  of 
celibacy,  as  with  the  original  Christian  demonology  and 
the  apostolic  expectation  of  the  world's  end,  we  are  con- 
fronted by  a  pagan  or  semi-pagan  survival?  Must  we 
not  conclude  that  the  question  as  to  the  value  of  celibacy 
is  to  be  decided,  not  by  the  greatly-to-be-suspected  ideas 
of  a  cruder  age,  but  by  the  common-sense  of  civilized 
and  spiritual  men  of  to-day?  And  submitting  the  ques- 
tion to  common-sense,  what  shall  we  say  of  it?  If  the 
will  of  God  is  expressed  in  nature  at  all,  it  is  beyond 


126  LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 

question  His  will  that  marriage  is  the  normal  and  nat- 
ural state  of  man.  All  agree  on  this.  Furthermore,  is 
it  not  clear  that  marriage  is  essentially  a  higher  life  than 
celibacy?  I  am  abscinding  from  external  and  accidental 
considerations  which  in  particular  cases  may  make 
celibacy  the  nobler  choice,  as  when  a  man  or  a  woman 
sacrifices  the  hope  of  marriage  at  the  call  of  some  urgent 
duty  of  charity  or  mercy.  But  taking  the  two  states  of 
life  in  themselves,  what  conceivable  suggestion  of  nature 
or  light  of  reason  gives  us  the  slightest  ground  for  es- 
teeming virginity  the  higher?  How  can  we  rationally 
escape  from  the  conclusion  that  a  life  and  condition  of 
sterility,  with  its  extreme  liability  to  sourness  and  selfish- 
ness, do  not  possess  the  social  or  the  ethical  value  of  a 
life  and  condition  which  are  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
word  productive ;  which  hallow  human  existence  with  its 
divinest  affections ;  which  ennoble  character  with  a  con- 
stant appeal  to  unselfish  devotion ;  and  which,  greatest  of 
all,  rest  upon  no  aberration  of  primitive  superstition,  or 
mistaken  eschatology,  but  upon  almost  the  plainest  ex- 
pression of  the  sovereign  Will  by  which  mankind  is  gov- 
erned ?  God  has  created  the  father ;  superstition  has  pro- 
duced the  eunuch. 

Celibacy  is  a  sacrifice  made  for  God,  it  will  be  said. 
But  what  religious  value  attaches  to  asceticism  merely  as 
asceticism?  We  might  make  it  a  sacrifice  for  God  if  we 
slew  our  relatives  as  the  Phoenicians  did ;  or  if  we  slashed 
ourselves  with  knives  as  the  priests  of  Cybele  did.  Whv 
has  not  Christianity  taken  over  these  sacrifices?    It  had 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  \2J 

every  whit  as  good  a  reason  for  doing  so  as  for  taking 
over  celibacy.  Indeed  if  sacrifice  as  such,  pain  for  its 
own  sake,  penance  as  penance,  be  good,  it  would  have 
been  on  the  whole  perhaps  less  revolting  to  have  kept  the 
penitential  knives  of  the  mystery-initiates  and  permitted 
to  priests  the  holiest  joy  and  the  noblest  responsibility 
that  human  life  affords. 

The  sole  possible  reason  for  retaining  celibacy  is  the 
belief  that  unholiness,  uncleanness,  and  a  kind  of  degra- 
dation are  inseparable  from  marriage.  The  literature  of 
Roman  Catholic  asceticism,  the  words  of  Hildebrand  and 
Peter  Damianus  who  did  so  much  to  enforce  the  present 
discipline,  and  even  the  brief  quotations  given  in  the  first 
part  of  this  letter  from  Gregory  XVI  and  Pius  IX  prove 
this  abundantly.  Because  the  priesthood  is  clean,  it  can 
have  nothing  to  do  with  marriage,  which  is  dirty.  There 
is  the  real  Roman  -argument,  notwithstanding  that  Rome 
considers  marriage  a  sacrament.  This  constant  and  dis- 
gusting preoccupation  with  the  merely  physical,  this  in- 
ability to  regard  the  higher  offices  of  wedded  life,  we  are 
certain  to  discover  in  every  Roman  reasoning  upon  this 
subject.  Such  an  attitude  is  Manichaeism,  a  survival  of 
heathen  taboo,  a  relic  of  one  of  the  worst  superstitions 
that  ever  misled  mankind.  Besides  it  is  hardly  less  than 
a  blasphemy  against  the  Author  of  nature,  not  a  single 
knowable  expression  of  whose  will  is  favorable  to  the 
idea  that  marriage  is  debasing,  and  celibacy  intrinsically 
the  higher  state  of  life. 

But  when  we  come  down  from  the  question  in  princi- 


128  LETTERS  TO    HIS   HOLINESS 

pie  to  the  question  in  present  practice  we  are  at  a  loss 
to  understand  how  even  an  iron  fanatic  like  Hildebrand 
could  ever  have  imposed  so  shameful  a  tyranny  upon  in- 
telligent men.  The  Church  takes  a  boy  postulant  at  the 
age  of  early  adolescence,  the  age  of  romance,  highly  col- 
ored dreams,  and  aspiration  for  self-sacrifice,  shuts  him 
up  in  a  petit  seminaire,  sends  him  thence  in  his  twentieth 
or  twenty-second  year  into  a  grand  seminaire,  where  his 
imagination  is  fed  upon  an  unreal  asceticism,  and  every 
healthy  acquaintance  with  life  as  it  is,  is  denied  him ;  and 
when  he  is  twenty-three  or  four  binds  upon  him  an  ir- 
revocable obligation  of  celibacy  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
It  is  preposterous  to  say  that  this  ignorant  boy,  who  has 
been  for  from  five  or  ten  years  under  a  most  unnatural 
training,  knows  what  he  is  doing  when  he  takes  that 
vow.  Later,  when  in  mature  manhood  he  is  crushed  by 
loneliness,  wearied  of  a  life  and  death  struggle  with  his 
own  heart,  and  it  may  be  weakened  in  his  faith,  then  and 
only  then  he  knows  what  he  has  done  when  it  is  eter- 
nally too  late.  Primary  dictate  of  justice  and  humanity 
as  it  is,  that  he  be  allowed  honorably  to  retire  from  an 
office  and  an  obligation  for  which  time  has  proved  him  to 
be  unfitted,  Rome  absolutely  refuses  to  release  him.  He 
must,  if  he  is  too  noble  to  be  a  secret  criminal,  either 
leave  the  priesthood,  becoming  thereby  a  victim  of  foul 
orthodox  vituperation,  or  remain  a  priest  with  nought 
before  him  but  a  ruined  life,  a  broken  heart,  a  Sahara  of 
sorrow,  and  at  last  most  welcome  death.  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  say  that  all  priests,  or  the  majority  of  priests, 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  I2g 

suffer  this  disillusion.  I  know  that  a  great  many  of 
them,  even  after  years  of  priesthood,  would  gladly  choose 
their  state  again  had  they  to  live  life  over.  But  there 
are  enough  of  disillusioned,  of  noble  men  whose  lives  are 
wrecked,  but  who  stand  steadfast  amid  the  ruins,  so  as 
not  to  wound  those  they  love ;  there  are  enough  of  these 
to  justify  us  in  our  indignation  against  a  despotism 
which  entices  an  unknowing  youth  into  a  superstitious 
vow,  and  then  mocks  his  fruitless  agony  when  he  dis- 
covers that  he  should  never  have  taken  it.  Let  Rome 
retain  its  celibate  clergy  if  it  wishes  to  cling  to  that 
superstition,  but  every  sentiment  of  honor  and  justice 
demands  that  those  men  should  be  delivered  from  the 
yoke  whom  it  is  crushing  into  misery  and  despair. 

The  wish  and  prayer  of  every  lover  of  humanity  should 
be  that  the  Roman  clergy  be  educated.  They  fancy  that 
they  are  educated  now.  They  imagine  that  their  seminary 
syllogisms  are  the  last  word  of  science  and  that  the  tide 
of  human  knowledge  has  not  risen  since  Thomas  of  Aquin 
died.  They  abandon  their  reason  that  Rome  may  think 
for  them.  They  inquire  no  further  when  an  Italian 
congregation  utters  an  oracle.  They  make  their  mo- 
tions, crosses  and  genuflections,  and  never  ask  what  is 
the  basis  of  that  set  of  traditional  ideas  which  they  call 
their  faith.  They  are  men  with  minds,  but  minds  in 
chains.  When  the  day  will  come  that  they  grasp  the 
full  understanding  of  their  own  personality,  search  man- 
fully into  their  beliefs  and  official  practices  to  see  if  any 
of  them  be  lies,  superstitions  and  brutalities,  read  beyond 


130  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

the  tawdry  text-books  of  a  dishonest  curriculum  into  the 
vast  province  of  modern  research,  and  bring  every  Ro- 
man teaching  to  the  test  of  reason,  history  and  con- 
science ;  then  will  the  central  citadel  of  spiritual  tyranny 
in  this  world  be  shaken.  Then  will  the  paganism  and 
brutality  which  Rome  has  carried  down  from  supersti- 
tious and  cruel  ages  to  hang  as  a  millstone  about  the 
neck  of  our  own,  be  broken  forever.  Then  for  many 
thousands  will  a  weight  be  lifted  from  the  conscience  and 
a  cloud  from  the  mind,  and  life  and  personality  will  go 
forth  freely  into  the  ways  of  normal  and  orderly  develop- 
ment ordained  for  them  by  God. 

XVIII 

Church    and   State 

Your  Holiness: 

There  is  a  third  pillar-principle  on  which  our  American 
civilization  rests,  and  which  all  civilized  peoples  must 
sooner  or  later  put  into  the  foundations  of  their  state, 
that  we  behold  the  Papacy  rejecting  and  doing  its  ut- 
most to  cast  out  into  the  rubbish-heap  of  error.  This 
principle  is  that  there  should  be  no  official  union  between 
civil  rulers  and  hierarchial  or  priestly  rulers.  No  Church, 
regarded  as  a  visible  organization,  should  be  united  with 
the  State.  Another  lesson  this,  of  mankind's  great 
Teacher,  Liberty;  another  step  forward  in  historic  evo- 
lution ;  another  achievement  of  triumphant  Democracv. 
To  sacrifice  this  feature  of  our  constitution;  to  give  of- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  I3I 

ficial  recognition  to  one  sole  Church  making  its  ministers 
state  functionaries,  and  its  maintenance  a  thing  of  gov- 
ernmental appropriation  would  be  setting  back  the  clock 
of  time  by  centuries,  would  be  abandoning  the  essential 
spirit  of  our  free  Republic,  would  be  in  one  word,  im- 
possible while  a  handful  of  Americans  remained  on  this 
continent. 

Yet  this  principle  the  Papacy  declares  to  be  godless. 
A  state  not  united  with  the  Church  is  in  germ  an  athe- 
istic state,  is  the  classic  argument.  Must  we  discuss  so 
puerile  a  sophistry  ?  Is  not  a  state  truly  Christian  whose 
civilization  and  laws  take  reverent  cognizance  of  the 
Christian  spirit?  Is  it  not  Christian  when  it  promotes 
justice,  cherishes  peace,  elevates  its  colonies  and  leaves 
the  human  conscience  free?  Is  it  not  Christian  when 
its  rulers  enter  upon  their  office  with  a  solemn  recognition 
of  Deity  and  of  their  heavy  responsibility  to  Him?  Is 
it  not  Christian  when  it  puts  no  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
any  religion  or  philanthropy?  Is  it  not  Christian  when  it 
invokes  divine  favor  upon  its  Congresses  and  legislatures  ? 
Is  it  not  Christian  when  it  provides  its  simple  seamen 
and  common  soldiers  with  every  facility  for  worship? 
Is  it  not  Christian  when  it  recalls  its  people  on  one  day 
in  the  year  to  the  thought  of  their  duty  to  the  God  of 
nations?  Is  it  not  better  to  have  this  interior  union  with 
the  Gospel  than  political  union  with  an  Italian  Curia? 
Or  is  Christianity  constituted  by  a  Concordat?  Is  it 
Atheism  not  to  have  in  Washington  a  nuncio  arrayed 
like  Solomon?     Does  the  difference  between  a  religious 


I32  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

and  unreligious  state  consist  in  the  government's  payment 
or  non-payment  of  bishops'  salaries,  and  its  entering  or 
non-entering  into  Vatican  intrigues?  Let  us  have  done 
with  these  Church-and-State  arguments.  Not  one  of 
them  but  is  contemptible ;  not  one  but  degrades  the  essen- 
tial spirituality  of  the  religion  of  Christ. 

We  need  not  give  many  examples  of  Papal  theology  on 
this  point.  Let  it  be  simply  stated  that  the  Papacy  con- 
demns uncompromisingly  the  principle  of  separation,  and 
permits  no  Catholic  to  advocate  it :  The  Syllabus  of  Pius 
IX  reprobates  in  its  fifty-fifth  proposition  the  thesis  that 
church  and  state  should  be  separated.  "Ecclesia  a  statu, 
statitsque  ab  ecclesia  sejitngendus  est."  Of  similar  tone 
is  the  seventy-seventh  condemnation  already  quoted : 
"In  our  age  it  is  no  longer  fitting  that  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion should  be  the  one  sole  religion  of  the  state,  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  others."  Leo  XIII  impudently  warned 
American  Catholics  that  our  country's  government  is 
imperfect  because  of  its  policy  of  separation.  And  you, 
Pius  X,  have  most  offensively  thrust  it  into  the  face  of 
civilization  that  the  Papacy  still  maintains  and  will  ever 
maintain  its  traditional  doctrine  of  official,  political 
union.  Your  Encyclical  to  the  French — "Vehementer 
Nos" — declares:  "That  church  and  state  should  be  sep- 
arated is  a  most  false  and  pernicious  doctrine  (falsissima 
maximcque  pemiciosa  sententia).  Wherefore  the  Roman 
Pontiffs  have  not  omitted  to  refute  and  condemn  it  as 
occasion  arose."  The  Encyclical  quotes  the  simile  of 
Leo  XIII  that  church  and  state  should  be  united  as  soul 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  I33 

and  body ;  and  avers  that  a  state  which  severs  the  union, 
acts  against  justice  and  right,  "contra  omne  jus  fasque." 
And  we  have  seen  you  condemn  the  venerable  bishop 
Bonamelli  of  Cremona  for  maintaining  in  his  Lenten 
pastoral  of  1906  that  the  time  had  come  to  recognize  the 
benefits  conferred  upon  religion  by  separation  of  church 
and  state.  "A  regime  of  separation,"  wrote  the  bishop, 
"will  be  accompanied  with  some  disadvantages ;  but  it 
will  result  in  greater  simplicity  and  candor  of  character, 
in  a  deeper  faith,  in  a  sincerer  piety,  in  a  more  manly  and 
independent  religion.  .  .  .  Whoso  endeavors  now  to 
impose  religion  by  force,  by  weight  of  authority,  by  moral 
coercion,  offends  and  irritates  the  conscience  of  men,  and 
effects  the  precise  contrary  of  his  purpose.  A  frank  ac- 
ceptance of  the  policy  of  separation  will  certainly,  with- 
out injuring  any  of  the  inviolable  rights  of  truth,  have  a 
beneficent  influence  upon  heretical,  schismatic,  or  unbe- 
lieving governments  and  peoples.  .  .  .  The  struggle 
of  to-day  is  wholly  moral,  not  material,  and  victory  will 
rest  with  him  who  shall  have  fought  most  bravely  be- 
neath the  banner  of  Freedom,  universal  Freedom.  This 
is  the  great  advantage  of  our  new  age,  the  age  of  church 
and  state  separation,  the  age  of  liberty  for  all  (E  il  grande 
vantaggio  del  nuovo  periodo  di  scparazione  dcllo  Stato 
dalla  Chiesa,  0  Libertd  per  tutti).  For  these  words  the 
bishop  was  rebuked,  and  is  held  a  sort  of  modernist, 
by  a  Papacy  which  will  not  tolerate,  will  not — as  the  "Ve- 
hcmcnter  nos"  just  said — cease  to  anathematize  the  cry  of 
the  age,  "Libertd  per  tutti"  (Liberty  for  all!). 


134  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

Here  then  is  the  Romanized  Catholic  Church  appeal- 
ing to  the  American  people,  asking  them  to  embrace  its 
teachings,  as  the  pure  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  yet  saying: 
'  Not  only  have  I  a  theological,  but  a  political  creed.  Of 
that  political  creed  one  of  the  tenets  is  that  church  and 
state  should  be  united.  The  opposite  opinion  is  a  damn- 
able error — falsissima,  maximeque  perniciosa  sententia. 
Therefore  you  Americans,  ere  you  adopt  my  soul-saving 
doctrines,  ere  you  perfectly  find  Christ,  must  most  firmly 
hold  that  your  Constitution  is  fatally  defective,  since  it  is 
opposed  to  union  of  church  and  state."  What  shall  we 
say  of  this  be  we  Catholics  or  not?  What  can  we  say 
except  this:  that  it  is  akin  to  blasphemy  that  a  religion 
should  have  any  political  creed  whatsoever;  that  a  re- 
ligion that  finds  the  kingdom  of  souls  insufficient,  but 
seeks  other  kingdoms  whereof  nuncios  and  concordats 
and  legates  a  latere  are  prime  features,  is,  to  the  extent 
that  it  is  committed  to  this,  false  and  putrescent;  that  a 
religion  which  demands  a  weakening  of  loyalty  to  country 
before  it  baptizes  us  unto  salvation  is  obstructing  the 
cause  of  Christ ;  and  that  such  a  religion,  or  at  least  that 
institution  in  it  which  is  responsible  for  this  scandal,  is 
under  the  anathema  of  Him  whose  Kingdom  was  not  of 
this  world.  In  God's  name  what  is  a  religion  for  but 
souls,  spirit-perfection,  Christ-character  building  among 
men  ?  A  church  that  puts  secular  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
this,  its  only  mission  and  sole  excuse  for  being,  commits 
a  sin  against  the  Son  of  God,  like  that  of  an  adulterer 
against  his  marriage  vows.    What  business  has  a  religion 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  1 35 

with  the  harlotry  of  politics  ?  What  right  has  it  to  fling 
into  our  free  faces  a  corpse  out  of  the  dead-house  of 
theocratic  feudalism,  and  say  to  us :  Unless  you  hold  to 
this  form  of  a  state  I  will  not  forgive  your  sins,  permit 
you  to  look  upon  the  Lord  Jesus,  or  approach  the  infinite 
God!  To  such  has  the  Papacy  descended!  It  will  let 
souls  go  whither  they  will  before  it  surrenders  its  church 
and  state  doctrine.  It  cares  not  if  the  world  emptied 
itself  into  Hell,  it  will  not  surrender  its  Inquisition-doc- 
trine. It  looks  on  unconcerned  while  its  own  Italy  in 
patriotic  revolt  against  it,  is  flinging  aside  all  religion; 
it  will  not  surrender  its  temporal  power  doctrine.  Yet 
the  Papacy  is  true  to  Christ !  The  Papacy  as  the  guide  of 
the  world's  conscience  and  morality  is  infallible!  True 
to  Christ!  To  Christ,  to  whom  souls  were  all,  whose 
kingdom  was  of  things  unseen,  whose  whole  Gospel  is 
fulfilled  in  two  words,  Love  and  Service!  Degraded 
rather  must  we  say  it  is,  until  beneath  its  tiara  and  en- 
folded by  its  jeweled  copes,  apostasy,  though  by  a  per- 
version of  spiritual  intelligence  it  may  be  unconscious 
apostasy ;  degraded  from  a  primitive  purity  and  a  high 
vocation,  until  its  sad  estate  reminds  us  of  another 
hierarchy  and  another  pontificate  to  which  and  to  whose 
lackeys  and  theologians  were  spoken  the  only  indignant 
words  that  ever  fell  from  the  lips  that  uttered  them: 
"Whited  Sepulchres!" 

Were  it  not  true  that,  as  has  been  remarked,  the 
Papacy  takes  less  heed  of  its  own  scandals  than  of  any- 
thing else  on  earth,   one  would   fain   think  that  Rome 


I36  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

would  at  least  quietly  drop  this  church-and-state  teach- 
ing, out  of  very  shame  for  the  foul  history  through  which 
that  teaching  has  passed.  For  no  heathen  subjugator  of 
nations,  no  Roman  Caesar  looking  forward  to  divine 
honors  after  death,  has  ever  paraded  before  the  world 
with  such  lust  for  dominion  and  such  omnipotent  preten- 
sions as  the  Roman  Pontiffs,  vicars  of  Him  who  had  not 
where  to  lay  His  head,  successors  of  a  Hebrew  fisher- 
man, who,  even  after  his  elevation  to  the  primacy — if  he 
ever  received  it — had  it  to  say,  "Silver  and  gold  I  have 
none."  Claiming  the  ownership  of  the  earth,  reducing 
kings  to  vassalage,  dethroning  them  at  will,  handing  over 
kingdoms  and  territories  to  whom  it  fancied,  building  up 
a  Canon  Law  and  a  theology  which  fashioned  its  claims 
to  world-sovereignty  into  the  semblance  of  a  science,  levy- 
ing armies,  achieving  conquests,  giving  itself  up  to  secu- 
larly, perfidy  and  intrigue, — to  this  has  the  Papacy  with 
its  church-and-state  and  temporal-power  doctrines  de- 
scended; with  this  unrejected  and  unrepented  of,  it  comes 
before  us  to-day,  and  asks  us  to  entrust  to  it  our  intelli- 
gence, our  independence  and  our  liberties ! 

The  Papal  office  once  was  spiritual,  and  steadfastly  re- 
fused to  follow  the  seduction  of  temporal  dominion  and 
royal  alliance.  The  early  Popes,  whose  like  have  not 
since  been  seen,  knew  nothing  of  any  lordship  over  kings, 
or  any  power  to  destroy  nations  by  annulling  the  sub- 
ject's allegiance ;  but  recognized  and  respected  their  duty 
to  their  reigning  sovereign,  held  themselves  in  civil  mat- 
ters as  simple  citizens,  and  loyally  fulfilled  the  duties  of 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  I37 

common  patriotism.  "Obey  God  in  our  person  and  we 
shall  obey  God  in  yours,"  writes  Pope  Symmachus  to  the 
Emperor  Anastasius.  To  the  Emperor  Michael  III,  Pope 
Nicholas  I  says :  "Under  the  law  of  the  Gospel,  the  em- 
peror cannot  usurp  the  rights  of  the  Pontiff,  nor  the 
Pontiff  the  power  of  the  Emperor."  The  pope  further  on 
expresses  this  sane  and  spiritual  proposition  which  is 
now  a  heresy:  "Thus  each  of  these  two  orders  (Papacy 
and  kingship)  finds  itself  safeguarded  against  the  pride 
which  would  be  engendered  by  the  union  of  the  two 
dignities"  (Labbe  tom-IV.  col-1232).  Another  ancient 
Pope  implicitly  anathematized  by  his  successors  is  Greg- 
ory II,  who  thus  instructs  Leo  the  Isaurian :  "As  the 
Pontiffs  placed  in  the  government  of  the  Church  do  not 
intrude  into  the  affairs  of  state,  so  the  emperors  likewise 
ought  not  to  intrude  into  the  affairs  of  the  Church.  As 
the  Pope  has  no  right  to  extend  his  inspection  over  the 
palace,  nor  to  bestow  royal  dignities,  so  the  Emperor 
should  not  extend  his  over  the  Churches,  nor  interfere 
in  clerical  elections,  nor  consecrate  and  administer  sacra- 
ments. .  .  .  It  is  necessary  that  each  of  us  remain 
in  the  station  to  which  God  has  called  him."  Not  to 
weary  the  reader  with  citations,  let  me  conclude  with 
these  words  of  Pope  Gregory  the  Great.  Gregory  at  the 
Emperor's  request  had  just  published  in  Italy  a  law 
which  Gregory  himself  considered  unjust.  As  an  obedient 
subject,  however,  he  did  as  requested  and  thus  discloses 
to  the  Emperor  his  mind  in  the  matter.  "As  subject  to 
your  command  (ego  quiddem  jussioni  subjectus)  I  have 


I38  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

had  this  law  proclaimed  in  various  countries,  but  by  let- 
ter I  have  informed  your  most  Serene  Majesties  that  the 
law  is  not  pleasing  to  Almighty  God.  On  both  sides  then 
my  duty  is  done.  I  have  obeyed  my  sovereign  {imp era- 
tori  obedientiam  pracbui)  and  I  have  not  by  silence  be- 
trayed what  I  believe  to  be  the  interest  of  God"  (pro  Deo 
quod  sensi  minime  tacui).  (Migne  P.  L.  ap.  Greg.  Mag. 
Ill,  col.  665.) 

To  this  temper  of  obedience,  these  examples  of  loyalty, 
this  chaste  fidelity  to  the  Gospel,  was  to  succeed  a  very 
riot  of  secular  dominion  and  despotic  pride.  Days  came 
and  still  are  with  us,  when  the  Popes — surely  no  fitter 
representatives  of  Christ  than  Gregory  the  Great — con- 
sidered it  intolerable  to  obey,  and  infamous  to  be  even  in 
civil  concerns,  the  subjects  of  any  state.  Rising  to  the 
topmost  step  of  European  feudalism  they  planted  there 
the  standard  of  earth-ownership.  They  grew  gluttonous 
there  with  the  world  for  their  banquet-table.  They  be- 
came drunken  there  with  the  heady  liquors  of  ambi- 
tion. They  demanded  union  of  State  and  Papacy,  which 
means  subjugation  of  State  to  Papacy — and  their  cry 
to-day  for  union  of  State  and  Papacy  is  but  an  echo  of 
or  a  longing  for  that  orgy  of  irreligion. 

Gregory  VII,  one  of  the  first  creators  of  a  Papacy 
made  pagan,  of  Caesaro-Papism  as  it  is  most  justly  styled, 
ordered  his  legatees  in  France  in  1081  to  see  to  it  that 
every  house  in  France  paid  annually  to  St.  Peter,  one 
denarius.  This,  says  Gregory,  is  an  ancient  duty  first  im- 
posed by  Charlemagne,  who  having  overcome  the  Saxons 


LETTERS  TO    HIS   HOLINESS  1 39 

by  St.  Peter's  help,  offered  his  conquest  to  St.  Peter. 
Gregory,  here,  as  is  evident  to  any  one  who  understands 
feudal  language,  considers  France  and  Saxony  as  belong- 
ing to  St.  Peter,  and  the  denarius  is  the  fealty-contribu- 
tion to  the  Roman  See.  This  interpretation  is  borne  out 
by  Gregory  IX  and  Innocent  IV.  This  Gregory  IX,  of 
whom  we  have  seen  much  already  in  the  matter  of  the 
Inquisition,  writes  to  Emperor  Frederick  II  in  October, 
1236:  "It  is  notorious  that  Constantine,  to  whom  be- 
longed universal  monarchy,  wished  that  the  Vicar  of 
Christ  and  Prince  of  the  Apostles  .  .  .  should  also 
possess  the  government  of  corporeal  things  in  the  whole 
world.  He  thought  that  he  to  whom  God  had  confided 
the  care  of  heavenly  things  should  rule  earthly  things. 
Therefore  he  gave  in  perpetuity  to  the  Roman  Pontiff 
the  imperial  sceptre  and  insignia,  with  Rome  and  all  its 
province,  and  the  empire  itself,  considering  it  infamous 
that  in  the  place  where  the  head  of  the  Christian  religion 
had  been  stationed  by  the  heavenly  sovereign,  an  earthly 
sovereign  should  exercise  any  power.  .  .  .  When  the 
Church,  imposing  the  yoke  on  Charlamagne,  transferred 
the  seat  of  Empire  to  Germany ;  when  it  called  your 
predecessors  and  yourself  to  sit  upon  the  imperial  throne ; 
zvhen  it  conceded  to  you  on  the  day  of  your  coronation 
the  pozver  of  the  sivord,  it  diminished  not  in  the  least  the 
substance  of  its  jurisdiction."  (Huillard-Brehalles:  Hist, 
diplom.,  Fred.  II,  t.  IV.) 

This  huge  structure  of  argument  as  proof  of  the  Pope's 
dominion  over  empires  and  emperors  is  based  upon  the 


I40  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

spurious  donation  of  Constantine.  Nor  is  Gregory  IX 
by  any  means  alone  in  this  monstrous  abuse  of  a  myth. 
Innocent  IV  at  the  Council  of  Lyons  in  1245  dwelt  fondly 
upon  the  idea  that  the  Pope's  ownership  of  the  Constan- 
tinian  Donation  is  but  a  visible  sign  of  his  sovereign  do- 
minion over  the  whole  world.  In  an  encyclical  published 
shortly  after  the  close  of  the  Council,  Innocent  goes  still 
further:  "Outside  the  church  there  is  no  building  save 
for  Hell,  and  there  exists  no  power  ordained  of  God.  It 
is  wrong  then,  and  shows  ignorance  of  the  origin  cf 
things,  to  imagine  that  the  Apostolic  See's  rule  over  secu- 
lar matters  dates  only  from  Constantine.  Before  him  this 
power  was  already  in  the  Holy  See  in  virtue  of  the  na- 
ture and  essence  of  the  See.  Succeeding  to  Jesus  Christ, 
who  is  at  once  the  true  king  and  true  priest,  according  to 
the  order  of  Melchisedech,  the  Popes  have  received  sov- 
ereignty not  only  pontifical  but  royal,  and  the  Empire  not 
only  of  heaven  but  of  earth.  Constantine  merely  resigned 
into  the  hands  of  the  Church  a  power  which  he  used  "with- 
out right  when  he  was  outside  her  pale.  Once  admitted 
into  the  Church,  he  obtained,  by  the  concession  of  the 
Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ,  authority  ivhich  only  then  became 
legitimate.  Secular  rulers  exercising  their  authority  are 
only  using  a  power  which  has  been  transferred  to  them, 
and  which  remains  latent  and  potential  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Church." 

This  text  of  Pope  Innocent,  only  one  expression  of  the 
immense  Papal  tradition  on  which  the  Church  and  State 
doctrine  is  based,  has  been  modified  and  mistranslated 


LETTERS  TO    HIS   HOLINESS  I4I 

by  M.  Gosselin,  the  champion  of  the  secular  sovereignty 
of  the  Papacy,  according  to  the  charge  of  Mgr.  Baudril- 
lart,   now   Rector  of  the  Catholic  University   of   Paris. 
Pope   Boniface  VIII,  under    whom    the  world's  revolt 
against  Papal  despotism  began  to  take  definite  steps,  gives 
us  another  instance  of  the  Papal  tradition  concerning  the 
respective  rights  of  Church  and  State.     He  says  in  re- 
gard to  the  Election  of  Ladislas  as  King  of  Hungary: 
"The  Roman  Pontiff,  constituted  by  God  above  kings  and 
kingdoms,  is  the  supreme  hierarch  of  the  Church  militant, 
and  has  obtained  principality  over  all  mortal  men."  (Ro- 
manus  Pontifcx  super  reges  et  regna  constitutus  a  Deo, 
in  Ecclesia  militanti  hierarcha  summus  existit,  et  super 
omnes  mortales  obtinens  principatnm,  sedensque  in  solio 
juducii,  etc.)    This  Boniface  in  his  celebrated  bull,  Unam 
Sanetam,"  develops  the  classic  idea  of  the  two  swords. 
According  to  this  conception,  God  has  ordained  two  prin- 
cipalities on  earth  typified  by  the  secular  sword  and  the 
spiritual  sword — that  is,  Kingship  and  Papacy.     But  of 
these  two  swords  the  lower  is  in  subordination  to  the 
higher.    King  is  under  Pope,  and  the  secular  sword  must 
be  wielded  for  the  Church's  progress  whenever  the  Ro- 
man Pontiff  invokes  it.     The  bull  contains  the  following 
definition :    "We  declare,  define,  establish  and  decree  that 
every  human  creature,  under  the  rigid  necessity  of  saving 
his  soul,  must  be  subject  to  the  Roman  Pontiff."     (Porro 
subesse  Romano  Pontifici  omnem   humanam  creaturam 
declaramus,  definiinus,  dicimus,  et  pronunciamus,  omnino- 
esse  de  necessitate  salutis.)    In  his  "Ansculta  Fill"  Boni- 


142  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

face  takes  to  task  King  Phillippe  le  Bel  of  France  in  a 
manner  which  discloses  plainly  that  Boniface  considered 
himself  as  the  sovereign  of  the  French. 

The  present  rector  of  the  Catholic  University  of  Paris, 
after  having  cited  these  and  other  like  pronouncements 
of  the  Roman  See,  comes  to  this  conclusion,  which  as- 
suredly no  honest  mind  can  evade,  but  which  it  is  to  his 
credit  to  acknowledge:  "I  .believe  it  is  incontestably 
clear  from  Papal  acts  and  documents  beginning  with 
Gregory  VII,  that  the  Popes  desired  to  place  themselves 
at  the  head  of  the  feudal  system."  (Je  crois  qu'il  ressort 
incontestablemcnt  des  documents  et  des  actes  pontiiicaux 
qu'  a  partir  de  Grcgoire  VII,  les  papcs  ont  tres  reellement 
vouht  sc  placer  a  la  tcte  de  la  hierarchic  fcodale.) 

Having  seen  the  officially  announced  Papal  theory  of 
civil  and  pontifical  sovereignty,  let  us  glance  at  a  few 
instances  of  how  the  Roman  See  put  it  into  practice. 

Innocent  III  ordered  a  crusade  against  Count  Raymond 
of  Toulouse,  with  the  result  that  a  great  part  of  Ray- 
mond's territory  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  Pope's 
powerful  plunderers.  Raymond  at  the  Lateran  Council 
of  121 5  requested  the  restoration  of  these  lands.  The 
Pope  with  a  majority  of  the  bishops  decided  that  the 
conquered  portions  of  his  domain  should  be  withdrawn 
from  him  forever  and  given  over  to  Simon  de  Montfort, 
that  leader  of  the  crusade;  while  the  unconquered  por- 
tions should  be  given  in  whole  or  in  part  to  the  son  of 
Raymond,  if  on  coming  of  age  he  should  be  found 
worthy.     Innocent  III,  as  everybody  knows,  held  in  fief- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  143 

possession  the  realm  of  England,  it  having  been  made 
over  to  him  by  the  despicable  Lackland.     Upon  Magna 
Charta,  the  great  charter  of  modern  liberties,  Innocent 
pronounced  the  following  malediction :    "In  the  name  of 
God  Almighty,  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost,  and  by  au- 
thority of  the  blessed  apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  after  hav- 
ing taken  counsel  with  our  brothers,  we  wholly  reject 
and  condemn  this  charter."     (Ex  parte  Dei  Omnipotentis, 
Patris    et   Filii    ct   Spiritus    Sancti,    anctoritatc    quoque 
beatorum  Petri  et  Pauli  Apostalorum,  ejus  ac  nostra,  de 
communi    fratrum    nostrorum    consilio,    compositioncm 
hujusmodi  reprobamus  penitus  et  damnamus.)        Pope 
Martin  IV  excommunicated  and  interdicted  King  Pedro 
of  Arragon  for  having  asserted  his  hereditary  right  to 
Sicily,  after  that  island  had  risen  in   1282  against  King 
Charles.     The  Pope  deprived  Pedro  of  his  kingdom  and 
presented   it,   on   condition    of    a  yearly  tribute   to  the 
Papacy,  to  Charles  of  Valois.     Not  satisfied  even  with 
these  outrages,  this  Vicar  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  declared 
a  crusade  against  Pedro,  and  promised  that  all  who  should 
die  therein  fighting  under  the  Papal  banner  should  re- 
ceive the  indulgence  of  the  Holy  Land  Crusaders.     Ma- 
homet is  by  no  means  alone  in  stimulating  fanatics  to 
bloodshed  by  holding  out  the  joys  of  Paradise  to  those 
that   fall.     Pope   Clement   IV   in    1205   sold   millions   of 
South  Italians  to  Charles  of  Anjou  for  a  yearly  tribute 
of  eight  hundred  ounces  of  gold,  neglect  in  the  payment 
of  which  would  incur  excommunication  and  interdict.    In 
1296,  Phillippe  le  Bel  of  France  requested  of  the  clergy 


144  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

of  his  kingdom  the  payment  of  their  share  of  the  public 
taxes.  Pope  Boniface  straightway  wrote  against  him  the 
bull  "Clericis  laicos" — a  document  as  subversive  of  society 
as  the  "Unam  Sanctam"  itself — in  which  he  forbade  the 
king  under  penalty  of  interdict  and  deposition  to  levy  this 
tax.  The  archbishop  of  Rheims,  after  counsel  with  the 
bishops  and  abbots  of  his  province,  wrote  to  Boniface  a 
lively  remonstrance  in  which  he  says  that  Frenchmen 
were  finding  these  Papal  interventions  prejudicial  to  the 
rights  of  their  sovereign.  Wherefore  he  begs  the  Pontiff 
to  let  the  French  church  alone  in  the  enjoyment  of  its 
liberties  and  in  loyalty  to  constituted  authority.  Two 
centuries  later  France  and  Venice  formed  a  coalition  for 
the  dismemberment  of  the  kingdom  of  Naples.  Pope 
Alexander  VI  became  the  third  party  to  the  infamy  on 
the  stipulation  that  when  Imola,  Forli,  Faenza  and  Pesaro 
were  conquered,  they  should  be  given  to  his  illegitimate 
son,  Caesar  Borgia.  This  pact  having  been  agreed  upon, 
Alexander  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  June,  1501,  issued  a  bull 
deposing  Federigo,  King  of  Naples,  and  dividing  his  terri- 
tory between  France  and  Spain.  But  the  League  of 
Cambray  of  1508  touches  the  lowest  depth  of  wickedness 
to  which  the  Church-and-State  doctrine  has  ever  dragged 
the  Papal  office.  The  parties  to  the  League  were  the  Em- 
peror Maximilian,  Louis  XII  of  France,  the  King  of 
Spain,  and  Pope  Julius  II.  The  object  of  this  band  of 
buccaneers  was  the  destruction  and  dismemberment  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Venice.  The  Pope  claimed  as  his  share 
of   the   pillage,    Ravenna,    Cernia,    Faenza   and    Rimini. 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  145 

Against  overwhelming  odds  Venice  fought  nobly  for  her 
life ;  but  foreseeing  the  inevitable  end  she  offered  to  the 
Pope  the  four  territories  he  lusted  after,  if  only  he  would 
desist  from  the  war.  Julius  not  only  refused  but  laid 
Venice  under  the  appalling  punishment  of  interdict.  The 
proud  little  state  collapsed  at  last,  and  was  parceled  among 
the  thieves  according  to  the  agreement.  Leo  X  long 
after  feudalism  had  passed  away  shows  how  the  idea  of 
earth-ownership  clings  to  the  papal  mind,  when,  not  as 
arbiter  in  any  dispute,  but  merely  as  world-suzerain,  he 
granted  to  the  King  of  Portugal  permission  to  possess  all 
kingdoms  and  islands  of  the  far  East  which  he  had 
wrested  from  the  infidel,  and  all  he  would  in  future  thus 
acquire,  even  though  up  to  that  time  unknown  and  un- 
discovered. As  late  as  1570  we  see  Pius  V,  now  a  canon- 
ized saint,  deposing  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  absolving  all 
her  subjects  from  their  allegiance.  It  may  be  well  for 
Catholics  who  look  upon  Elizabeth  as  a  monster  because 
of  her  persecutions,  to  remember  that  the  blood  of  Catho- 
lic martyrs  shed  in  her  reign  rests  upon  Saint  Pius  V's 
soul  more  than  on  hers.  I  am  not  defending  her  in  her 
brutalities.  But  historical  justice  requires  us  to  take  into 
account  that  the  Pope  had  done  all  that  was  in  him  to 
make  Catholicism  one  with  treason ;  that  in  England  there 
was  a  nest  of  Jesuitical  intriguers  aiming  at  the  Queen's 
dethronement  and  the  subjugation  of  England  to  Spain  ; 
and  that  a  most  formidable  plot  to  assassinate  Elizabeth 
had  been  formed  by  the  Duke  of  Guise,  the  archbishop  of 
Scotland,  and  the  Papal  nuncio  at  Paris.     Since  we  are 


I46  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

not  certain  that  the  Pope  himself  knew  of  the  plot,  we 
may  trust  that  despite  appearances  he  was  not  a  party 
to  it. 

I  will  conclude  these  instances  of  dangerous  Papal  pre- 
tensions with  a  mention  of  Clement  V,  the  first  of  the 
Avignon  Popes.  In  his  "Pastoralis"  of  March,  13 14, 
Clement  thus  refers  to  a  sentence  of  Henry  VII  of  Naples 
against  Robert,  a  vassal  of  the  Roman  See :  "We  annul 
it  in  virtue  of  the  incontestable  supremacy  which  the  Holy 
See  possesses  over  the  Empire,  and  of  the  right  which 
belongs  to  the  head  of  the  Church,  to  administer  the  Em- 
pire during  an  interregnum,  and  by  that  plentitude  of 
power  which  the  successor  of  St.  Peter  has  received  from 
Jesus  Christ,  King  of  Kings,  and  Lord  of  Lords."  Let 
us  add  as  the  natural  complement  to  this  incident  that 
John  XXII,  the  successor  of  Clement,  ordered  the  com- 
petitors for  the  Imperial  crown,  Frederick  of  Austria  and 
Louis  of  Bavaria,  to  resign  all  power  and  submit  their 
claims  to  him.  Upon  their  refusal  the  Pope  excommuni- 
cated them,  declared  the  throne  vacant,  confirmed  the 
nomination  of  Robert  of  Naples  as  Imperial  Vicar,  and 
demanded  that  all  who  held  office  by  appointment  of  the 
late  emperor  should  resign,  under  pain  of  excommunica- 
tion and  interdict.  In  1323  he  absolved  the  subjects  of 
Louis  of  Bavaria  from  their  allegiance. 

My  intention  has  not  been  to  give  a  complete  list  of 
the  dangerous  abuses  proceeding  from  theories  of 
Church-and-State  and  Papal  world-sovereignty.  Many 
instances  of  deposition  of  kings,  levying  of  unnecessary 


LETTERS  TO   HIS  HOLINESS  147 

and  vindictive  wars  and  cruel  collection  of  taxes  in  sup- 
port of  the  Papacy's  secular  ambition,  I  have  not  even 
mentioned.  I  have  had  in  mind  simply  to  set  forth  a  few 
examples  of  the  great  Papal  tradition  on  Church  and 
State,  with  the  ultimate  purpose  of  opening  the  eyes  of 
Catholics,  now  so  obstinately  closed,  to  the  reasons  for 
the  modern  world's  rejection  of  the  Roman  Papacy. 
True,  the  absolutism  exercised  by  the  Papacy  before  the 
Reformation  may  have  been  in  certain  cases  beneficial. 
True  also,  the  time  has  gone  forever  when  the  Pope  can 
depose  kings.  But  for  all  that,  when  the  Popes  to-day 
insist  on  union  of  Church  and  State,  we  must  turn  back  to 
history  to  discover  what  the  Popes  made  of  it,  when  they 
enjoyed  it  under  conditions  which  Roman  Curialists  still 
fondly  regard  as  ideal.  The  Church-and-State  history 
of  the  Papacy  has  formed  a  theological  tradition,  and 
out  of  that  tradition  the  Papacy  has  never  emerged,  never 
given  the  least  sign  of  emancipation.  Has  not  the  world 
then  ample  ground  for  its  distrust  and  dread?  Can  we 
be  sure  that  the  Papacy  would  be  substantially  changed  in 
its  dealing  with  states  to-day,  if  we  gave  it  its  former 
power?  Or  rather  are  we  not  certain  that  there  would  be 
but  little  change?  Have  we  not  seen  that,  despite  the 
outrages  of  Papal  despotism,  the  Syllabus  of  Pius  IX 
condemns  the  proposition  that  the  Roman  Pontiffs  have 
transgressed  the  limits  of  their  power  and  usurped  the 
rights  of  princes?  (Pr.  23.)  If,  then,  Catholics  are  sol- 
emnly forbidden  to  hold  that  the  "Unam  Sanctam,"  the 
"Clericis  laicos,"  the  "Ausculta  fili,"  the  League  of  Cam- 


I48  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

bray,  and  divers  depositions  of  kings  and  proclamations 
of  bloody  wars,  constitute  a  transgression  of  the  limits 
of  Papal  power,  what  possible  conclusion  remains  to  us 
but  this :  that  the  Papacy  of  old  is  in  spirit  and  intent  the 
Papacy  of  to-day,  and  that,  did  we  yield  ourselves  up  to 
it,  we  might  be  visited  at  any  day  with  what  France  suf- 
fered under  Boniface  VIII,  Louis  of  Bavaria  under  John 
XXII,  England  under  Innocent  III,  Aragon  under  Mar- 
tin IV,  Naples  under  Alexander  VI,  and  Venice  under 
Julius  II?  Have  we  not  seen  an  instruction  issued  by 
Propaganda  in  1883  condemning  the  collection  of  money 
then  going  on  in  Ireland  to  pay  the  mortgage  on  Par- 
nell's  Wicklow  estate?  Said  Propaganda:  "It  must  be 
evident  to  your  lordships  that  the  collection  called  the 
Parnell  Testimonial  Fund  cannot  be  approved  by  this 
sacred  Congregation,  and  consequently  it  cannot  be  tol- 
erated that  any  ecclesiastic,  much  less  a  bishop,  should 
take  any  part  whatsoever  in  recommending  or  promoting 
it."  No  wonder  that  Michael  Davitt,  Catholic  though  he 
is,  should  write:  "The  interferences  of  Rome  in  Irish 
affairs  of  a  non-religious  nature  have  been  invariably 
antagonistic  and  injurious  either  in  their  direct  motives 
or  indirect  consequences.  Ireland  in  fact  has  been  treated 
as  if  she  stood  in  the  relation  of  a  great  and  temporal  fief 
of  the  Holy  See."  And  again :  "It  always  happens  that 
this  influence  [of  Rome]  is  thrown  into  the  scale  against 
the  movements  in  which  the  Irish  people  seek  to  redress 
their  social  or  political  wrongs.  .  .  .  Those  in  fact 
who  know  the  trend  and  purpose  of  Vatican  policy  in 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  149 

relation  to  the  British  Empire  are  aware  that  no  Ulster 
Orangeman  looks  in  his  bigoted  ignorance  with  more 
dislike  on  Home  Rule  for  Ireland  than  do  the  learned 
and  ever-watchful  members  of  the  Sacred  College  of 
Propaganda.  (The  Fall  of  Feudalism  in  Ireland,  pp. 
407  ff.) 

Have  we  not  seen  again  Gregory  XVI,  in  an  encyclical 
to  the  Poles,  bid  that  sorely-tried  people  to  lay  down  their 
arms  against  their  Russian  oppressors?  Have  we  not 
seen  the  same  Pope  refuse  Poles  admission  into  Papal 
territory  unless  they  could  show  passports  from  the 
Muscovite  tyrants  against  whom  Poland  was  then  in  the 
field  ?  Have  we  not  seen  your  Holiness,  Pius  X,  sending 
a  similar  admonition  to  Poland  when  a  few  years  ago  an 
uprising  against  Russia  seemed  to  be  imminent?  Have 
we  not  seen  you  anathematizing,  and  as  far  as  possible 
annulling,  a  law  passed  by  France,  a  law  supported  by 
an  overwhelming  majority  of  the  French  electorate,  and 
declared  by  the  most  eminent  lay  Catholics  and  a  majority 
of  the  episcopate  of  the  nation  to  be  at  least  deserving  of 
a  loyal  trial?  Have  we  not  heard  you  uttering  in  full 
consistory  the  following  words  which  startle  us  with 
reminiscences  of  the  third  Innocent  and  the  fifth  Pius : 
"It  is  our  strict  duty  to  direct  all  men  without  exception, 
according  to  the  rules  and  standards  of  morality,  in  pri- 
vate life  and  in  public  life,  in  the  social  order  and  in  the 
political  order;  and  thus  to  direct  not  only  the  gov- 
erned but  rulers  as  well."  (E  nostro  stretto  dovere 
dirigere  gli  uomini  tutti  e  singoli,  secondo  le  norme  e  le 


150  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

regole  dell'  onesta,  nella  vita  privata  e  nella  pubblica, 
anche  nel  campo  sociale  e  politico,  e  non  solamente  i  sud- 
diti,  ma  ancora  gli  imperanti" ;  quoted  in  the  Civiltd  Cat- 
tolica,  Oct.  6,  1906.)  Alas,  that  we  must  so  thoroughly 
distrust  the  Papacy's  "rules  and  standards  of  morality !" 

With  these  instances  of  Papal  theory  and  practice  be- 
fore our  eyes,  and  with  that  massive  tradition  of  Papal 
autocracy  looming  out  of  the  past,  how  can  we  say  that 
the  doctrine  of  Church  and  State  is  now  only  an  academic 
question,  and  that  with  the  passing  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  danger  of  Papal  interference  also  disappeared? 
Rather  must  we  not  say  that  dreams  of  mediaeval  world- 
dominion  still  haunt  the  heads  of  the  Italian  Curia ;  that 
even  now  the  Popes  possess  the  look  and  gesture  of  sov- 
ereigns of  heaven  and  earth ;  and  that  the  vigilance  of  the 
modern  world  against  a  recrudescence  of  Vatican  theo- 
cracy, is  based  upon  the  soundest  instinct  of  patriotism 
and  the  plainest  lessons  of  history. 

In  this  Church-and-State  matter,  as  in  the  others  that 
we  have  discussed,  the  reform  demanded  of  Roman 
Catholicism  by  the  world's  conscience  is  no  child's  play. 
Such  idle  decrees  and  useless  commissions  as  were  devised 
to  check  the  revolt  of  the  sixteenth  century  would  be  but 
a  mockery  adding  weight  to  the  indictment  already  drawn 
up  against  a  Papacy  that  has  been  definitely  condemned. 
Sovereign  Pontiff,  will  you  dare  to  thrust  the  knife  into 
the  cancer?  Will  you  dare  to  look  squarely  in  the  face 
the  reasons  which  justify  the  attitude  of  civilization  to- 
wards Rome  ?    Will  you  dare  to  cleanse  your  office,  your 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  I5I 

theology,  your  law,  and  make  of  your  See  a  spiritual  shep- 
herdship,  and  a  spiritual  shepherdship  alone?  Will  you 
dare  to  attempt  the  sublime  venture  of  announcing  that 
the  Papacy  repents  of  the  sins  and  the  apostasies  to  Christ 
which  it  has  kept  unconfessed  so  long;  that  it  abandons 
temporalities  and  secularities,  and  will  henceforth  forever, 
in  meekeness,  in  sympathy,  in  poverty,  in  sincerity,  pursue 
the  sole  divine  vocation  of  witnessing  to  things  unseen,  of 
representing  to  the  uplifted  eyes  of  men  the  traits  and 
aspect  of  that  Christ  at  whose  feet  alone  men  lay  down 
their  thrones  and  their  liberties,  their  consciences  and  their 
hearts  ? 

"I,  bone,  quo  virtus  tua  te  vocat.    I,  pede  fausto, 
Grandia  laturus  meritorum  prsemia!    Quid  stas?" 
Not  to  be  !  Alas,  no !    Not  from  you  the  cry  of  contrition  : 

"Eheu  !  cicatricum  et  sceleris  pudet 
Fratrumque" — 

XIX 

Freedom    of   Intellect 

Your  Holiness: 

A  fourth  principle  which  is  imbedded  in  the  structure 
of  modern  society  is  freedom  of  intellect,  liberty  for  the 
students  and  scholars  of  the  world  to  carry  on  their  re- 
searches, and  publish  their  methods  and  conclusions. 
Days  were  when  this  freedom,  no  less  than  freedom  from 
religious  persecution,  and  freedom  from  tyrannical  the- 
ocracies was  set  at  naught.     Theological  systems  in  all 


152  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

ages  from  ancient  Egypt  and  Chaldea  to  modern  Islam 
and  Rome  detest  the  innovator.  Their  basis  is  tradition, 
their  method  coercion,  their  motto :  "Nil  innovetur  nisi 
quod  traditum  est",  in  the  words  of  an  early  Roman 
bishop,  or,  in  the  words  of  his  latest  successor,  "No  mod- 
ernism" !  The  old  Babylonian  exorcists  would  summarily 
condemn  the  rash  lover  of  novelties  who  presumed  to 
change  the  established  formulas  of  incantation.  The 
Egyptian  priesthood  fought  bitterly  against  the  quasi- 
monotheistic  reforms  of  Amenhotep  IV.  The  old- 
fashioned  Mohammedans  of  today  have  set  their  faces 
against  their  young  men's  studying  in  European  schools. 
The  Jewish  priestly  caste  of  Graeco-Roman  times  anathe- 
matized the  Greek  learning  of  men  like  Philo.  And  in 
similar  spirit  the  Papal  autocracy,  at  this  hour,  is  absorbed 
in  the  Augean  labor  of  cleansing  Catholicism  from  a  phi- 
losophy which  does  not  fit  four-square  with  Thomas 
Aquinas,  and  from  an  exegesis  which  presumes  to  go 
beyond  the  erudition  of  Venerable  Bede.  Priesthoods 
and  theocracies  indeed  have  ever  been  the  most  powerful 
foes  with  which  learning  has  had  to  contend ;  whereas 
lifeless  conservatism  and  hoary  superstition  have  had  in 
them  their  connatural  allies.  It  may,  however,  mitigate 
the  severity  of  my  censure  to  reflect  that  such  a  condition 
has  prevailed  because  every  theology  conceives  itself  to  be 
the  masterpiece  of  the  Infinite  God,  and  every  hierarchy 
the  authorized  rulers  of  men  in  the  name  of  the  Most 
High. 

But  today  the  truth-loving  and  truth-seeking  intellect 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  I53 

of  man  acknowledges  no  coercion  in  the  pursuit  of  its 
ideal.  Least  of  all  is  it  inclined  to  tolerate  hierarchical  co- 
ercion, the  history  of  which,  from  Egypt  to  the  Vatican, 
is  filled  with  brutalities,  stupidities  and  falsehoods.  God 
has  commissioned  no  hierarchy  to  say  "Halt" !  to  human 
reason.  He  has  authorized  no  pontiff  to  declare  venerable 
forms  and  ancient  usages  immune  from  the  scrutiny  of 
honest  intellects.  A  knowing  mind  and  a  deathless  desire 
to  push  it  into  every  province  of  the  knowable,  has  the 
Almighty  Spirit  given  to  man,  to  be  guided  and  governed 
only  by  that  intellectual  conscience — perhaps  the  most 
imperious  phase  of  conscience — love  for  truth.  Were  the 
mass  of  men  so  constituted  as  to  sit  content  with  conscious 
falsehood,  were  we  totally  depraved  so  that  we  should 
take  a  perverted  pleasure  in  mendacity,  as  the  Papacy 
seems  to  think  we  are,  then  indeed  might  the  Wisdom  that 
rules  all  have  given  us  over  to  the  cozening  of  a  protec- 
tive hierarchy.  Only  in  such  a  case  He  should  have  had 
to  guarantee  that  hierarchy  with  more  evident  signs  oi 
infallibility  than  the  Vatican  censors  have  ever  shown. 

But,  since  we  are  not  fashioned  after  this  type,  since  we 
cannot  abide  a  lie,  since  the  whole  scheme  of  this  uni- 
verse is  to  make  Truth,  however  slow  its  conquests,  pre- 
vail at  last,  then  may  He  wisely  leave  us  as  He  has  left  us 
to  hew  our  way  toward  the  light  under  the  discipline  of 
labor,  under  the  wholesome  penance  of  acknowledging 
past  mistakes,  and  under  the  inspiration  that  the  ideal  for 
which  we  struggle  is  divine  and  its  triumph  sure. 

There  is  certainly  danger  in  the  free  exercise  of  intel- 


154  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

lect.  But  where  is  there  no  danger  except  in  a  tomb? 
There  is  danger  in  having  a  conscience ;  danger  in  free- 
will ;  danger  in  being  men ;  danger  in  being  created  at  all. 
A  life  without  danger  is  a  life  without  any  dignity  or 
moral  value  whatsoever.  Would  any  man  prefer  to  an 
immortal  soul  with  eternal  dangers,  the  existence  of  an 
oyster  buried  securely  in  the  mud?  It  is  by  venture 
and  peril  that  God  educates  the  race.  One  man  or 
one  generation  may  be  led  astray  and  fall  into  grievous 
error.  But  another  man  or  generation  will  discover  the 
error  and  make  of  it  a  new  milestone  on  the  way  to 
Truth.  What  more  energetic  element  is  there  in  our  love 
for  Truth  than  the  recollection  of  mistakes  which  formerly 
beguiled  us,  and  the  jealous  vigilance  with  which  we  take 
precautions  against  being  deceived  again?  Better  is  the 
danger  that  attends  the  free  search  for  Truth  than  that 
death  of  the  aspiring  mind  which  is  inflicted  by  closing 
whole  provinces  of  investigation  and  setting  on  guard 
before  them  a  mitred  hierarchy  to  see  that  we  shall  not 
enter.  In  the  one  case  we  have  but  a  temporary  aberra- 
tion of  our  godlike  Truth-seeking  impulse  which  itself 
remains  uninjured.  In  the  other  that  impulse  in  its  root 
and  essence  is  attacked  and  stricken. 

Now  the  idea  that  certain  departments  of  human 
thought  are  absolutely  forbidden  to  candid  examina- 
tion is  repeatedly  announced  and  enforced  from  Rome. 
"Love  of  novelty",  "seeking  to  know  too  much",  "un- 
bridled liberty  of  research",  "temerity  in  the  use  of 
intellect",  "audacity  of  inquiry",  are   phrases   that   one 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  155 

may  be  certain  of  finding  in  the  frequent  Papal  lamen- 
tations "on  the  evils  of  the  day".  In  your  own  letter 
on  Modernism  you  quote  from  Pius  IX:  "Philosophy 
must  not  search  into  the  high  mysteries  of  God,  but 
piously  and  humbly  revere  them" ;  and  from  Gregory 
IX :  "Some  among  you  swollen,  bladder-like,  with 
vanity,  are  endeavoring  by  profane  novelty  to  trans- 
gress the  boundaries  established  by  the  Fathers" ;  and 
this  from  Gregory  XVI :  "Heartily  to  be  deplored  is 
that  madness  of  human  reason  whereby  men  are  giving 
themselves  to  novelties,  and,  against  the  Apostolic 
warning,  are  seeking  to  know  more  than  it  behooves 
them  to  know,  and  are  presumptuously  imagining  that 
truth  is  to  be  sought  outside  the  Catholic  Church,  in 
which  it  is  found  without  even  the  slightest  stain  of 
error".  This  last  citation  your  Holiness  prefaces  with 
the  observation  that  curiosity  and  pride  are  remotely 
the  twin  causes  of  Modernism ;  and  curiosity,  you  de- 
clare, "unless  it  be  wisely  restrained,  suffices  for  the 
explanation  of  every  manner  of  error".  Intellectual 
curiosity,  it  is  true,  you  would  not  censure  did  it  con- 
fine itself  to  Canon  Law,  liturgy,  numismatics  and 
botany.  But  the  instant  it  proceeds  freely  to  scrutinize 
the  validity  of  dogmatic  formulas,  the  history  of  doc- 
trine, and  the  evolution  of  religion,  you  lift  your  Papal 
rod  and  cry :  "Beware !  In  these  questions  you  must 
not  think,  but  submit  without  thinking  to  the  Fathers 
of  the  primitive,  and  the  scholastics  of  the  medieval 
Church".     And  if  in  disregard  of  your  mandate,   sin- 


I56  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

cere  and  capable  students  apply  themselves  to  the  study 
of  these  fundamental  matters,  they  are  said  to  be  aban- 
doned to  pride,  and  are  guilty  of  a  blasphemous  curi- 
osity. It  is  not  pride  or  curiosity  in  the  approved  theo- 
logians to  tell  us  with  finality  how  the  Infinite  Deity  is 
constituted;  how  He  foreknows  and  foreordains;  how 
angels  traverse  space;  what  Christ  was  thinking  and 
planning  in  the  womb  of  His  mother ;  and  how  ma- 
terial qualities  can  exist  without  any  correlated  matter 
to  exist  in.  This  farrago  of  transcendental  imperti- 
nence is  not  curiosity,  not  "seeking  to  know  more  than 
it  behooveth  to  know".  But  when  a  scholar  investigates 
the  Synoptic  problem,  studies  the  early  history  of  pen- 
ance, or  inquires-  whether  Papal  Infallibility  and  the 
Immaculate  Conception  were  known  to  St.  Paul  or 
Justin  Martyr;  that  is  curiosity  and  the  deadly  sin  of 
pride. 

And  what  tribunal  is  it  that  thus  holds  human  reason 
in  a  strait  and  narrow  path?  What  conspicuous 
marks  does  it  possess  of  a  supernatural  ability  to  lead 
us  into  all  truth,  and  to  check  our  knowing-impulse  lest 
we  fall  into  error?  It  is  no  other  tribunal  than  that 
Roman  Papacy  which  debauched  the  morality  of  the 
world  for  five  centuries  by  teaching  that  to  rob  a  heretic 
of  every  farthing  was  an  innocent  act;  which  organized 
the  most  efficient  murder-corps  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen ;  which  deposed  kings  and  disposed  of  kingdoms  as 
fancy  or  ambition  moved  it ;  which  condemned  belief 
in   the   existence   of   antipodes ;   which   made   it   formal 


LETTERS  TO    HIS   HOLINESS  157 

heresy  to  hold  that  the  earth  goes  round  the  sun ;  which 
has  struggled  savagely  against  every  advance  of  human 
thought  from  Francis  Bacon  to  Alfred  Loisy ;  which  has 
inscribed  on  its  Index  practically  every  book  that  marks 
a  new  era  for  human  intellect  in  the  last  three  centuries ; 
which  fell  headlong  into  the  hoax  of  Diana  Vaughan 
and  her  devil-worship;  which  grants  over  forty  thou- 
sand years'  indulgence  a  year  for  carrying  in  one's 
pocket  fifty-nine  beads  strung  on  a  chain ;  which  propa- 
gates devotions  to  saints  whom  all  scholars  of  such  sub- 
jects know  never  to  have  existed ;  which  has  made  divers 
badges  originating  in  absurd  revelations  vehicles  of 
heavenly  benedictions ;  which  has  shown  itself  so  hostile 
to  science,  and  so  favorable  to  superstition,  that  the 
nations  which  still  acknowledge  its  supremacy  are  the 
lowest  in  intelligence,  and  the  most  primitive  in  worship 
of  the  civilized  world.  With  these  guarantees  the 
Papacy  demands  that  the  profound  and  specialized 
scholarship  of  this  age  shall  surrender  itself  uncon- 
ditionally into  its  hands,  and  submit  its  methods  and 
conclusions  to  a  congregation  of  Italian  scholastics. 
The  demand  is  sublimely  ridiculous.  Think  of  it !  the 
scholars  of  the  modern  world,  men  so  passionately  con- 
secrated to  study  that  they  count  as  little  the  sacrifice 
of  their  life  should  their  science  require  it,  blindfolding 
and  prostrating  themselves  before  a  Curia  that  holds 
to  St.  Philumena,  the  house  of  Loretto,  Diana  Vaughan, 
and  Our  Lady  of  Guadaloupe ! 

The  persecution  of  intellect  by  the  Congregation  of 


158  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

the  Index  and  the  allied  agencies  of  censorship  in  the 
Roman  Church,  has  been  as  deadly  as  the  persecution 
of  conscience  by  the  Inquisition.  Especially  those  mod- 
ern studies  which  are  concerned  with  the  various 
branches  of  historical  criticism  and  research, — biblical 
science  and  the  history  of  beliefs  in  particular — have  had 
to  fight  and  still  are  fighting  their  way  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  against  an  incessant  stream  of  de- 
nunciations, degradations,  excommunications  and  anathe- 
mas. We  are  not  likely  to  forget  the  martyrs  of  the 
Inquisition's  faggots.  But  let  us  hold  in  equally  faith- 
ful remembrance  that  host  of  silent  students  who,  in 
order  to  push  forward  the  frontier  of  human  knowledge, 
and  lead  us  nearer  to  the  divine  Ideal  of  Truth,  have 
borne  and  are  bearing  the  hatred  and  the  curse  of  Rome. 
Let  us  keep  their  memory  green.  Driven  forth,  many 
of  them,  from  their  ancestral  faith;  forbidden  access  to 
the  altar  before  which  they  gladly  consecrated  their 
lives;  deposed  from  stations  of  honor  and  hunted  into 
solitude;  persecuted  with  the  scorn  and  often  the  cal- 
umny of  the  orthodox  even  after  death,— they  stand  be- 
fore us,  not  the  haughty  sciolists  you  describe,  Sovereign 
Pontiff,  but  Truth's  dearest  disciples,  whose  one  fault 
was  that  they  neither  could  lie,  nor  hold  back  such 
Truth  as  it  was  given  them  to  see.  Pride  is  their  sin, 
you  say.  Pride,  because  they  cannot  give  the  lie  to  the 
life-long  labors  of  their  study  at  the  command  of  an 
angry  bishop  who  has  never  learned  the  alphabet  of 
their    science;    pride,    because    they    protest    that    an 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  1 59 

anathema  cannot  destroy  a  fact,  nor  a  refusal  of  the  Sac- 
raments answer  an  argument ;  pride,  because  in  the  face 
of  dishonor,  and  with  broken  hearts,  they  are  honest 
enough  to  say :  "I  can  do  no  otherwise,  so  help  me 
God".  Pride,  you  insist.  Very  well ;  but  perhaps  be- 
fore the  Searcher  of  hearts,  the  issue  between  the  scholar 
who  painstakingly  examines  every  step  of  his  way  lest 
his  foot  rest  on  any  other  foundation  than  evidence  and 
truth,  and  the  pontiff  who  assumes  to  judge  before  he 
knows,  and  is  instant  to  persecute  rather  than  prone  to 
admonish,  will  be  decided  in  quite  another  way. 

Let  us  take  a  typical  instance  of  a  scholar-victim,  that 
we  may  see  in  a  concrete  case,  how  a  man  can  love  Truth 
and  how  a  hierarchy  can  hate  it.  The  glorious  founder 
of  the  science  of  biblical  criticism,  perhaps  the  most 
liberating  science  in  the  history  of  the  world,  was  Rich- 
ard Simon,  priest  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Oratory, 
who  died  really  a  martyr  to  candor  and  scholarship  in 
1712.  Richard  Simon,  as  is  the  case  with  Alfred  Loisy, 
illustrated  humble  birth  by  brilliant  genius.  From  almost 
the  beginning  of  his  ecclesiastical  course  he  threw  himself 
ardently  into  Oriental  studies,  and  distinguished  himself 
not  only  by  intellectual  acumen  but  by  intellectual  hon- 
esty. He  had  a  passion  for  sources,  for  original  docu- 
ments, for  evidence  at  first  hand.  The  scientific  method 
appears  in  him  in  a  high  degree,  that  method  which 
looks  behind  tradition  and  beyond  received  opinions  for 
facts,  all  ascertainable  facts.  In  those  days  such  a  tem- 
per of  mind  was  a  wonderful  thing.     For  the  scientific. 


l6o  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

method  had  hardly  yet  been  born.  Augustine  and 
Jerome  were  then  no  more  questioned  than  Scripture 
itself.  And  so  dominated  was  positive  science  by  the- 
ological prepossessions,  that  learned  teachers  discussed 
what  species  of  animals  spoke  before  and  after  Balaam's 
ass;  and  even  the  two  Buxtorfs  held  that  the  Hebrew 
accents  were  of  divine  origin,  and  the  vowel-points  in- 
spired. In  1678  appeared  Simon's  Histoire  Critique  du 
Vieux  Testament,  which  brought  to  minds  thus  held  in 
bondage  the  light  of  sound  method  and  scientific  criti- 
cism. In  that  work  Simon  maintained  that  Moses  did 
not  write  the  whole  Pentateuch,  that  the  styles  of  the 
various  books  of  the  Old  Testament  exhibit  the  indi- 
viduality and  the  general  mental  complexion  of  the  sev- 
eral authors,  and  that  the  text  furthermore  often  gives 
evidence  of  having  been  gone  over  by  a  hand  later  than 
that  of  its  original  author.  He  openly  questioned  the 
absoluteness  of  Jerome's  authority  as  critic  and  trans- 
lator, and,  in  an  age  when  men  were  flung  into  chains 
in  Spain  for  not  giving  sufficient  respect  to  the  Vulgate, 
he  pointed  out  many  errors  in  that  version.  Protestants 
attacked  him ;  Catholics  cried  out  against  him ;  the  Ora- 
torians  expelled  him ;  above  all  Bossuet  set  out  to  ruin 
him.  At  Bossuet's  instigation  the  State  condemned  the 
work,  the  police  destroyed  three  hundred  copies,  and  in 
1683  it  was  put  on  the  Index.  Undaunted,  the  great  stu- 
dent brought  out  a  critical  history  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, in  which  he  disputed  the  Pauline  authorship  of 
Hebrews,  drew  attention  to  the  dubiousness  of  the  inci- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  l6l 

dent  of  the  adulterous  woman  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
remarked  that  the  narrative  of  the  bloody  sweat  and  the 
comforting  angel  was  lacking  in  many  ancient  manu- 
scripts, proved  that  the  Old  Testament  citations  in  the 
New  were  often  allegorical  rather  than  literally  perti- 
nent, and  declared  that  I  John  V,  7,  was  a  text  desti- 
tute of  critical  authority.  In  1702  he  translated  the  New 
Testament.  Against  this  work  Bossuet  let  loose  that  im- 
perious scorn  of  his  which  so  disfigures  him.  Utterly 
unacquainted  with  criticism,  Bossuet  based  his  attack 
on  the  ground  of  tradition  and  theology,  those  lordly 
ideas  which  give  fine  opportunity  for  rhetoric  and  decla- 
mation, but  are  impatient  of  the  minute  scholarship  of 
the  trained  critic.  The  work  was  condemned,  and  Bos- 
suet drove  home  the  condemnation  by  calling  Simon  a 
Socinian,  a  Semi-Pelagian,  a  destroyer  of  Scripture,  a 
despiser  of  the  Fathers,  a  contemner  of  theology  whose 
translation  destroyed  the  proof  of  original  sin,  cast  doubt 
on  the  damnation  of  unbaptized  infants,  and  was  through- 
out a  mass  of  impieties.  Simon  retired  to  Dieppe,  and 
feeling  that  his  end  was  near,  and  dreading  lest  after 
his  death  his  manuscripts  would  be  altered  and  perverted 
by  his  life-long  foes,  he  carried  outside  the  walls  of  the 
city  his  notes  and  unpublished  writings,  the  precious 
result  of  half  a  century  of  incessant  study,  and  set  fire 
to  them.  If  ever  a  history  of  the  progress  of  Truth  is 
written,  it  will  have  no  sadder  chapter  than  the  one  which 
describes  this  scene, — the  aged  scholar,  alone  in  the  dead 
of  night,  watching  the  destruction  of  his  life's  accumu- 


l62  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

lated  knowledge.  But  perhaps  his  tears  and  the  agony 
of  his.  heart  were  solaced  by  the  reflection  that  those 
flames  would  light  up  the  face  of  Truth  to  whole  gen- 
erations yet  to  come,  and  would  make  visible  to  all  man- 
kind the  hideous  visage  of  that  tyranny  that  had  hounded 
him  to  death.  Overcome  by  grief  and  agitation,  he  re- 
turned to  the  city  and  fell  into  a  fever  from  which  he 
was  unable,  and  it  may  be,  unwilling,  to  recover. 

The  method  which  Richard  Simon  followed  is  the 
foundation  of  biblical  science  today ;  his  conclusions,  so 
far  as  they  went,  a  more  ample  criticism  has  proved  to 
be  true ;  but  his  name  is  still  anathema  at  Rome,  and 
only  the  liberal  and  modernist  Catholic  dares  to  speak 
of  him  with  respect  and  veneration.  For  how  shall 
Rome  not  hate  the  father  when  she  persecutes  the  chil- 
dren? The  Richard  Simons  of  every  succeeding  age, 
and  of  our  own,  have  met  the  great  Oratorian's  fate,  re- 
ceiving from  Science  the  laurel  wreath  of  merit,  and 
eliciting  from  Rome  spiteful  malediction  and  brutal  pun- 
ishment. You,  Pius  X,  have  shown  yourself  the  worst 
enemy  to  human  intelligence  that  even  the  Papacy  can 
boast  within  the  memory  of  living  men.  The  lists  of  your 
scholarly  victims  and  of  your  obstructive  decisions  are 
almost  as  great  in  number  as  the  weeks  of  your  pontifi- 
cate. You  have  condemned  Loisy,  LeRoy,  Laberthon- 
niere,  Denis,  Viollet,  Fogazzaro,  Dimnet ;  directly  or  indi- 
rectly you  have  suspended  Tyrrell,  Murri,  Minnochi ; 
deposed  Fracassini,  Turmel,  Battifol,  Gennochi,  Klein ; 
censured  von  Hugel  and  II  Rinnovamento ;  anathema- 


LETTERS  TO  HIS  HOLINESS  163 

tized  the  Lega  Democratica  Nazionale ;  put  an  end  to 
clerical  congresses ;  and  stopped  the  publication  of 
Demoin,  Studi  Religiosi,  La  Vie  Catholique,  La  Justice 
Social,  La  Revue  de  I'Histoire  et  de  Litterature  Re- 
ligieuses,  and  doubtless,  if  the  whole  truth  were  known, 
The  New  York  Review.  Under  you  the  Biblical  Com- 
mission has  issued  such  preposterous  decisions,  rejected 
by  a  practical  unanimity  of  modern  scholars,  and  even  by 
the  most  eminent  members  of  the  Commission  itself,  as 
that  Moses  wrote  the  Pentateuch,  Isaiah  the  entire  book 
associated  with  his  name,  and  the  Apostle  John  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  Under  you  has  fallen  an  iron  age  upon 
Catholic  scholarship.  Von  Hummelauer  has  been 
blamed  for  his  study  of  inspiration ;  Poels  for  a  similar 
work ;  Condamin  has  been  refused  the  Imprimatur  for 
his  introduction  to  Isaiah,  Lagrange  for  his  volume  on 
Genesis.  You  have  issued  a  Syllabus,  many  of  whose 
propositions,  rejected  by  you  as  false,  are  part  of  the 
very  alphabet  of  critical  scholarship.  You  have  sent 
forth  an  Encyclical  on  modernism  which  closes  the  door 
in  the  face  of  science,  and  opens  a  highway  to  the  most 
brutal  persecution.  In  that  document  you  command 
superiors  of  seminaries  to  allow  their  students  no  books 
or  magazines  which  will  reflect  the  scholarship  of  the 
day.  You  order  bishops  to  ordain  no  studious  candi- 
date who  is  suspected  of  leaning  toward  the  conclusions 
of  the  world's  most  eminent  scholars.  You  strictly  en- 
join upon  bishops  to  expel  from  the  schools  subject  to 
them,  any  teacher  who  may  come  under  the  same  sus- 


164  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

picion.  You  stringently  require  of  the  Episcopate  that 
they  appoint  a  "vigilance  committee"  in  every  diocese 
to  hunt  out  and  denounce  modernist  Catholics,  this  com- 
mittee to  report  to  Rome  under  oath  every  three  years. 
You  have  declared  that  the  mad  decisions  of  the  Biblical 
Commission  bind  in  conscience.  You  have  given  forth 
the  edict  that  all  contradictors  and  gainsayers  of  your 
Syllabus,  and  your  Encyclical  "Pascendi" ,  incur  excom- 
munication reserved  to  the  Roman  Pontiff.  You  have 
left  untried  no  expedient  for  separating  Catholics  into 
a  mass  of  illiterates  unacquainted  with  the  scholarship 
of  the  last  hundred  years,  and  closed  in  by  an  opaque 
curtain  of  medieval  exegesis  and  scholastic  theology. 

And  if  we  ask  who  is  this  Pontiff  who  defies  the 
laborious  acquisitions  of  four  generations  of  illustrious 
scholars,  who  makes  it,  so  far  as  his  words  can,  impos- 
sible for  a  Catholic  to  study  Scripture,  the  history  of 
doctrine,  the  science  of  religion,  and  philosophy,  we 
must  answer :  He  is  a  product  of  an  Italian  seminary 
of  fifty  years  ago,  who  is  an  absolute  stranger  to  the 
sciences  he  condemns.  He  knows  nothing  of  biblical 
criticism.  He  entered  his  pontificate  ignorant  of  every 
modern  language  but  Italian.  He  is  unread  in  philosophy, 
in  historical  theology,  in  modern  psychology.  He  is  the 
man  who  has  flung  out  indulgences  in  torrents.  He  is 
the  man  who  granted  in  a  special  brief  under  his  own 
signature  to  the  Master-General  of  the  Dominicans,  forty 
thousand  five  hundred  years  indulgence  a  year  for  car- 
rying beads.     He  is  a  man  who  encourages  devotion  to 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  165 

the  non-existent  St.  Philumena,  who  rebuked  Bishop 
Bonomelli  for  a  pastoral  advocating  disunion  of  Church 
and  State,  and  was  wroth  with  Canon  Chevalier  for  show- 
ing the  absurdity  of  the  House  of  Loretto  myth.  He  is 
the  man,  finally,  who  wrote  these  words  in  1904,  words 
which  are  as  ridiculous  as  were  ever  addressed  to  an  age 
of  enlightenment :  "The  Hebrew  patriarchs  were  ac- 
quainted with  the  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion and  found  consolation  in  thinking  of  Mary  in  the 
critical  moments  of  their  lives".  (7  patriarchi  ebrei  erano 
famigliari  con  la  dottrina  dell'  Immaculata,  e  trovovano 
consolazione  nel  pensiero  di  Maria  nelle  ore  solcnne  dclla 
loro  vita.)  I  would  wish  to  indulge  in  no  severer  words 
of  rebuke  than  the  occasion  calls  for,  but  surely  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  independent  scholarship  never  suf- 
fered a  more  impertinent  attack  than  that  now  in  progress 
under  your  direction.  Had  you  condemned  the  accom- 
plishments of  modern  engineers  and  surgeons,  and  for- 
bidden Catholics  to  ride  in  steam-cars  or  to  be  put  under 
an  anesthetic,  you  would  not  have  done  a  more  reaction- 
ary and  absurd  thing  than  you  have  done  in  laying  under 
your  malediction  the  vast  creative  work  of  critical  studies, 
and  in  prohibiting  us  from  reading  the  books  that  are 
moving  the  world.  Does  your  policy  of  sweeping  con- 
demnation, of  deposing  professors,  of  keeping  modern 
works  out  of  supposed  institutions  of  learning,  suggest 
a  Church  that  fears  no  truth  and  welcomes  every  acces- 
sion of  human  knowledge,  or  a  Church  that  dreads  the 
light,    and    trembles    before    the    scrutiny    of    inquiring 


l66  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

minds?     If  that  "Catholic  Philosophy"  that  you  insist 
upon  is  so  conspicuously  victorious,  why  are  Catholics 
forbidden  to  read  Kant  or  Laberthonniere?    If  Catholic 
theology  is  so  evidently  true  that  only  pride  and  sinful 
curiosity  can  question  it,  why  do  you  keep  Harnack  and 
LeRoy  out  of  seminary  libraries?     If  Catholic  exegesis 
has  no  worthier  opponent  than  the  "delir amenta"  of  fools, 
whence  this  panic  at  the  mention  of  the  name  of  Loisy? 
Your  actions  and  your  decrees,  Roman  Pontiff,  are  only 
too  suggestive  of  a  convention  once  held  by  the  stage- 
coach drivers  of  England,  who,  at  the  time  of  the  intro- 
duction of  steam-engines,  solemnly  protested  against  this 
pernicious  novelty  and  voted  that  it  must  be  suppressed. 
The  Index  and  the  Inquisition  are  the  Roman  Congre- 
gations which  execute  the  Pope's  condemnatory  decisions. 
The  Inquisition  is  that  tribunal  which  passed  the  edict 
on  the  24th  of  February,  1616,  that  it  was  formal  heresy 
(sententiam  formaliter  hcereticam)  to  maintain  that  the 
sun  is  immovable  and  that  the  earth  goes  round  it;  and 
that  it  was  theologically  erroneous  and  philosophically 
absurd  to  hold  that  the  earth  has  a  daily  rotation  on  its 
axis.     On  the  22nd  of  June,  1633,  there  came  another 
decree   from  the    Inquisition   condemning   Galileo,    and 
reiterating  a  condemnation  of  1616  against  Copernicus, 
and  adding:     "And  in  order  to  suppress  teachings  so 
deadly,  and  to  make  it  impossible  for  them  to  spread 
further,  to  the  grave  detriment  of  Catholic  truth,  a  de- 
cree  is   issued  by  the  holy   Congregation   of  the   Index 
according  to  which  the  books  which  contain  these  teach- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  167 

ings  [the  Copernican  astronomy]  are  forbidden,  and  these 
teachings  themselves  are  declared  to  be  false  and  utterly 
opposed  to  the  holy  and  divine  Scriptures."  Galileo  at 
the  age  of  seventy  appeared  before  the  Inquisition  in  full 
session,  retracted  and  renounced  the  conclusions  of  his 
life-long  study,  and  received  as  a  penance  for  the  crime 
of  founding  modern  astronomy,  the  seven  penitential 
psalms,  to  be  said  once  a  week  for  three  years.  On  the 
5th  of  March,  1616,  the  Index  condemned  Copernicus' 
De  Revoliitionibus  Orbium  Celestium,  and  a  letter  of 
the  Carmelite  Foscarini  which  upheld  the  Copernican 
astronomy.  The  Index,  on  the  10th  of  May,  1619,  pro- 
hibited Kepler's  Epitome  Astronomies  Copernicce,  and 
later  editions  of  the  Index  added  the  words :  "condemned 
also  are  all  books  teaching  the  mobility  of  the  earth  and 
the  immobility  of  the  sun."  Foscarini,  we  may  note, 
was  put  in  prison  by  Cardinal  Caraffa,  Archbishop  of 
Naples.  In  1757  the  prohibition  of  "all  books  teaching 
the  mobility  of  the  earth  and  the  immobility  of  the  sun" 
was  repealed.  But  only  in  1822  was  it  decided  by  the 
Inquisition  that  books  might  be  printed  in  Rome  which 
taught  these  two  propositions.  Two  years  before,  the 
Master  of  the  Sacred  Palace  had  refused  the  "imprima- 
tur" to  the  "Elements  of  Optics  and  Astronomy",  writ- 
ten by  a  professor  of  the  Sapienza,  Guiseppe  Settele, 
because  the  book  taught  that  the  Copernican  astronomy 
was  demonstrated.  When  the  book  did  appear,  it  con- 
tained a  note  by  the  theological  censors,  which  thus 
speaks  of  modern  astronomy:     "A  system  which  seems 


l68  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

to  contradict  the  literal  sense  of  Holy  Scripture,  and 
which,  moreover,  has  not  only  no  substantial  proofs  in 
its  favor  but  involves  gross  errors,  can  be  maintained 
by  no  Catholic  who  holds  to  the  rule  that  we  may  not 
depart  from  the  literal  sense  of  Scripture  unless  we  see 
clearly  that  such  literal  sense  would  lead  to  absurdity. 
The  condemnation  of  this  system  is  also  based  on  its 
philosophical  absurdities,  etc."  Finally,  in  1835,  the 
Index  struck  from  its  list  the  condemnation  of  Coper- 
nicus, Kepler,  Foscarini  and  Galileo.  It  is  decidedly 
unfortunate  that  Rome  lifts  its  anathema  from  the  con- 
clusions of  scholarship  only  when  the  rest  of  mankind 
has  been  following  them  for  two  hundred  years.  Pos- 
sibly two  hundred  years  from  now  the  Papacy  will  permit 
Catholics  to  hold  that  Moses  did  not  write  the  Penta- 
teuch, nor  Isaiah  all  the  prophecies  attributed  to  him. 
But  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  patience  of  intelligent  mem- 
bers of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  cannot  endure  so 
long. 

The  Inquisition  in  our  own  day  has  distinguished  itself 
by  solemnly  forbidding  Catholic  schools  to  teach  that 
the  text  of  the  "Three  Heavenly  Witnesses"  (I  John 
V,  7)  is  spurious,  although  there  is  not  an  independent 
scholar  in  the  world  that,  after  studying  this  text,  regards 
it  as  genuine.  So  ridiculous  was  this  decree  that  Rome 
dares  not  interfere  even  when  Catholics  disregard  it, 
and  it  stands  beside  the  condemnation  of  heliocentric 
astronomy  as  an  impressive  witness  to  the  ignorant 
obscurantism,  and  bitter  hostility  to  Truth,  of  the  Roman 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  l6o. 

Curia   which   summons   to   its   tribunal,   and   visits   with 
anathema,  the  highest  scholarship  of  the  world. 

The  Bible  itself  has  not  been  spared  by  Rome  and  those 
that  learned  their  lessons  from  Rome.  A  synod  held  in 
Toulouse  in  1229  decreed  that  the  laity  should  not  possess 
Bibles.  The  psalter  and  the  breviary  were  allowed  them, 
but  no  more.  A  local  council  at  Beziers,  in  1246,  decided 
that  the  laity  should  have  no  theological  books,  and  clerics 
none  in  the  vernacular.  In  1276,  James  I,  of  Aragon, 
forbade  the  possessing  of  the  Old  or  New  Testament  in 
Spanish.  Such  as  already  had  them,  whether  layfolk  or 
clerics,  were  obliged  to  give  them  up,  or  come  under 
suspicion  of  heresy.  This  law  was  renewed  by  later 
kings,  and  confirmed  by  Pope  Paul  II.  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  attached  severe  penalties  to  either  the  translating 
or  the  owning  of  a  vernacular  Bible.  In  1530,  Henry 
VIII  of  England,  still  a  dutiful  child  of  the  Church,  de- 
creed, with  the  advice  of  his  prelates,  that  the  reading  of 
the  Bible  should  be  only  by  permission  of  superiors.  Fer- 
nando Valdes,  Archbishop  of  Seville,  and  Inquisitor-Gen- 
eral, issued  an  Index  in  1551  which  forbade  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  in  Spanish  or  any  vernacular  idiom.  So 
rigidly  enforced  was  this  law  that  when  a  Spanish  Fran- 
ciscan brought  out  a  book  of  selections  from  Scripture 
it  was  condemned  by  the  Index  of  Sandoval,  in  1612  and 
1614.  The  Spanish  Index  and  the  Antwerp  Index  con- 
demned a  translation  of  some  psalms,  and  the  Lamenta- 
tions, in  1543;  and  Lope  de  Vega  was  obliged  to  elimi- 
nate from  his  "Shepherd  of  Bethlehem"  translations  of 


I70  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

the  Magnificat,  the  Benedictus,  the  Nunc  Dimittis,  and  the 
Miserere.  The  Portuguese  Index,  in  1624,  prohibited 
books  that  contained  long  passages  from  the  Bible.  No 
Catholic  Bible  in  Portuguese  appeared  until  1778.  The 
Index  of  the  Sorbonne,  1 541- 1543,  tells  us  that  vernacular 
Bible-reading  is  highly  dangerous,  and  points  to  the  Wal- 
densians  and  the  Albigeois  in  proof  of  the  statement. 
In  Italy  the  Scriptures  were  widely  read  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries;  but  in  1564  Pius  IV  forbade  ver- 
nacular Bibles,  and  dense  ignorance  of  Scripture  pre- 
vailed, at  least  until  1757,  when  Benedict  XIV  revoked 
the  prohibition.  The  spirit  of  hostility  had  by  no  means 
died  out  at  that  late  date,  however,  for  when  the  Abate 
Martini  brought  out  an  Italian  version  (1769- 1776),  a 
vigorous  effort  was  made  to  put  the  work  on  the  Index. 
The  attempt  failed ;  though,  even  when  Pius  VI — to  his 
honor  be  it  said — made  Martini  archbishop  of  Florence, 
the  base  endeavor  continued.  In  1640  the  Inquisitor- 
General  and  confessor  to  the  King  of  Spain,  Antonio  de 
Sotomayor,  archbishop  of  Damascus,  published  an  Index 
which  absolutely  forbade  vernacular  Bibles  and  books  of 
the  Gospels  and  Epistles.  To  set  aside  scruples,  this 
Index  naively  adds,  Bibles  in  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin, 
Chaldaic,  Syriac,  Ethiopic,  Persian  and  Arabic  do  not 
come  under  this  condemnation.  The  Index  of  Pope  Pius 
IV  (1559)  ordered  that  no  vernacular  Bibles  be  printed, 
read,  or  possessed,  without  the  written  permission  of  the 
Roman  Inquisition.  The  fourth  rule  of  the  Tridentine  In- 
dex declares  that  more  evil  than  good  results  from  indi#- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  171 

criminate  Bible-reading,  on  account  of  the  temerity  of 
human  nature,  and  therefore  the  command  is  given  that 
permission  to  read  Holy  Writ  must  be  obtained  from  a 
bishop  or  an  Inquisitor,  which  permission  shall  be  in 
writing  and  conceded  only  upon  the  advice  of  pastors  and 
confessors.  But,  if  any  persons  presume  to  read  the  Bible 
in  the  vernacular  without  this  authorization  they  cannot 
be  absolved  until  they  go  before  the  bishop;  and  such 
book-dealers  as  have  sold  Bibles  to  those  that  had  no 
written  permission  shall  give  the  money  thus  received  to 
the  bishop,  who  shall  devote  it  to  pious  uses,  and  shall 
perform  whatever  penance  the  bishop  enjoins.  Pope 
Alexander  VII  put  on  the  Index  vernacular  Bibles  (Biblia 
vulgari  quoc unique  idiomate  conscripta).  From  1664 
till  1758,  nearly  one  hundred  years,  this  prohibition  re- 
mained in  force  until  revoked  by  Benedict  XIV.  This 
latter  Pope  suspended  the  Tridentine  rule  requirng  per- 
mission to  read  the  Scriptures.  Later  Popes  have  not 
hindered,  and  some  have  even  encouraged,  the  reading 
of  the  Bible  ;  but  now  and  then  the  old  opposition  appears. 
Thus,  in  1845,  the  archbishop  of  Mechlin  legislated  :  "We 
renew  the  prohibition  of  Bible-reading  in  the  vernacular 
without  the  permission  of  the  bishop  or  confessor".  And 
in  1713  Clement  XI  condemned  the  following  proposition: 
"The  Lord's  day  should  be  sanctified  by  holy  reading, 
especially  of  Sacred  Scripture.  It  is  wrong  to  wish  to 
restrain  Christians  from  this  reading."  Propositions  of 
similar  import  were  included  in  the  condemnations  of 
the  Synod  of  Pistoia  in  1794. 


172  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

The  hostility  to  enlightenment  and  scholarship,  Sover- 
eign Pontiff,  which  appears  throughout  the  history  of 
Roman  censorship,  must  cease,  if  the  Church  has  any 
desire  to  retain  within  her  fold  men  who  receive  a  modern 
education.  Further  and  further  the  world  of  students 
and  intellectual  leaders  is  receding  from  Catholicity. 
Catholics  are  in  danger  of  becoming  a  Church  of  the 
ignorant.  Certainly  you  are  doing  your  best  to  make 
it  so.  It  is  only  by  throwing  open  the  door  to  scholar- 
ship, by  encouraging  independent  students  instead  of  con- 
demning them,  by  beginning  at  once  the  necessary  work 
of  adapting  Catholicism  to  the  ascertained  results  of  criti- 
cal research,  that  the  ancient  Church  can  live.  You 
might  take  the  first  step  toward  such  a  consummation  by 
associating  with  your  Italian  Index-censors  a  group  of 
students  who  have  been  trained  in  modern  universities. 
This  would  destroy  the  Index ;  but  men  generally  live 
longer  after  a  tumor  has  been  cut  out  of  them. 

XX 

The  Jesuits  and  Intellectual   Tyranny 

Your  Holiness: 

The  hostility  to  scholarship  manifested  in  your  Roman 
censorship,  appears,  as  is  only  natural,  in  the  methods 
and  results  of  Catholic  education.  Certainly  it  is  no 
matter  for  astonishment  that,  with  modernist  books  re- 
moved from  their  shelves,  and  modernist  professors  ex- 
pelled from  their  chairs,  Catholic  schools  are  in  a  condi- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  173 

tion  of  conspicuous  inferiority.  Think  of  calling  an 
institution  by  the  noble  name  of  university  which  will 
depose  a  teacher  who  thinks  that  Moses  did  not  write 
the  Pentateuch !  A  penitentiary  for  the  intellect ;  a  train- 
ing-ground for  bigotry,  a  nest  of  Italian  theology, — call 
it  by  these  names,  but  out  of  respect  for  the  God  of 
Truth,  call  it  not  a  university.  A  university  is  a  school 
for  the  canvassing  of  all  views ;  is  dedicated  to  inde- 
pendent research ;  and  cherishes  as  the  prime  condition 
of  self-preservation,  freedom  for  the  intellect  of  both  pupil 
and  professor.  But  when  you  say  to  a  student:  "Stop 
those  researches  into  Isaiah,  for  they  are  leading  you  to 
a  conviction  of  the  multiple  authorship  of  that  book ;  and 
you  know  the  Biblical  commission  binds  in  conscience. 
If  you  dare  to  publish  your  study  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
in  which  you  point  out  the  vital  differences  between  the 
Joannine  Christ  and  the  Synoptic  Christ,  you  will  be  put 
on  the  Index.  Abandon  those  patristic  investigations,  for 
the  evidence  is  leading  you  toward  the  opinion  that  the 
ante-Nicene  Christians  did  not  consider  Christ  to  be  sub- 
stantially equal  to  God  the  Father,  and  you  will  be  con- 
demned for  holding  that.  Turn  your  mind  to  some  other 
study  than  philosophy,  for  you  are  beginning  to  believe 
that  scholastic  psychology  is  too  intellectualistic  and  offi- 
cial, and  does  not  rest  on  a  profound  knowledge  of  the 
vital  elements  of  personality ;  and  remember  the  fate  of 
Laberthonniere!"  When  you,  Roman  Pontiff,  address 
this  sort  of  language  to  a  student,  then  scholarship  is  im- 
possible, research  is  killed,  and  your  "universities"  become 


174  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  modern  men.  And  it  is  precisely 
to  this  condition  that  you  have  reduced  Catholics.  High 
schools  and  falsifying  seminaries  are  all  that  remain  to 
them.  The  Jesuits,  whose  reputation  for  scholarship  is 
one  of  the  most  extraordinary  delusions  of  the  pious, 
may  teach  Latin  grammar,  and  a  philosophy  which  ex- 
plodes the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  in  three  lines ;  pro- 
fessors of  theology  may  discuss  with  Thomas  Aquinas 
whether  more  men  or  women  would  have  been  born  had 
there  been  no  fall  of  man  ;  teachers  of  scripture  may  main- 
tain with  Hetzenauer  that  no  amount  of  evidence  avails  as 
much  as  a  decision  of  an  Italian  Congregation ;  but  as  for 
creative  scholarship,  as  for  the  discovery  of  new  truth, 
this  belongs  only  to  schools  that  are  free.  You  have 
made  it  impossible  in  the  institutions  which  run  after 
your  favor  instead  of  seeking  Truth. 

Let  us  look  into  the  case  of  those  Jesuits  who  are  re- 
puted to  be  a  body  in  possession  of  impressive  learning, 
and  have  the  direction  of  the  majority,  probably,  of  Catho- 
lic colleges.  Let  us  see  whether  the  law  that  governs 
them,  and  the  methods  imposed  upon  them  and  through 
them  upon  their  students,  are  such  as  are  apt  to  educate 
scholars  or  to  produce  only  a  mediocre  type  of  bigot. 
In  their  earliest  days  the  Jesuits  were  noted  for  the 
liberty  and  the  profundity  of  their  scholarship.  They 
appeared  so  independent  and  open-minded,  by  comparison 
with  the  older  orders,  that  Richard  Simon,  who  certainly 
knew  what  academic  dignity  and  freedom  meant,  tired 
not  of  praising  them,  and  even  thought  of  applying  for 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  175 

admission  into  their  company.  Those  were  the  clays  when 
the  Jesuits  produced  a  Maldonatus  and  a  Petavius,  names, 
the  like  of  which  have  not  appeared  in  their  history  for 
nearly  three  hundred  years.  But  in  1623  the  Jesuits 
turned  aside  from  the  standards  of  independent  research, 
and  have  been  ever  since,  and  in  growing  measure,  the 
upholders  of  rigidity,  the  persecutors  of  scholars,  and  the 
chief  instruments  of  the  Papacy's  rule  of  iron.  In  that 
year,  1623,  came  out  the  famous  letter  of  the  General 
Aquaviva,  De  observanda  ratione  studiorum,  deque  doc- 
trina  S.  Thomce,"  in  which  the  former  liberty  of  opinion 
was  deplored  and  stringent  orders  were  given  that  there 
should  be  an  end  of  it.  "Let  no  one  imagine,"  says 
Aquaviva,  "that  he  has  general  liberty  to  adopt  opinions 
which  he  may  find  in  books  written  by  members  of  the 
Society,  even  when  such  books  have  been  published  with 
the  permission  of  superiors.  For,  over  and  above  the 
fact  that  many  of  those  books  appeared  before  the  Society 
had  established  definite  rules  concerning  studies,  our 
Generals  have  ever  resisted  the  former  freedom  (ejusmodi 
libertati  minquam  swmxmi  propositi  non  restiterunt)  and 
even  in  our  own  time  have  expressed  the  wish  frequently 
and  publicly  that,  with  regard  to  certain  books,  our  cen- 
sors had  been  more  careful  and  more  severe." 

From  Aquaviva  to  to-day  Jesuit  censorship  has  been 
"careful  and  severe."  Men  who  follow  not  the  iron  uni- 
formity of  the  Society's  fixed  opinions  in  philosophy  and 
theology  are  dismissed  from  professorships,  and  kept  un- 
der incessant  vigilance.    It  is  a  fine  rule  for  an  army,  it  is 


I76  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

an  admirable  discipline  for  a  pententiary ;  but  it  means 
the  death  of  scholarship.  And  it  is  indeed  impressive  to 
note  that  the  greatest  men,  intellectually,  in  Jesuit  history, 
were  either  dead  before  Aquaviva's  letter  or  died  soon 
after  it.  Maldonatus  died  in  1583;  Toletus  in  1596; 
Molina  in  1601 ;  Vasquez  in  1604;  Sanchez  in  1610; 
Suarez  in  1617;  Bellarmine  in  162 1  ;  Lessius  in  1623; 
Laymann  in  1625 ;  and  Petavius  in  1652.  Their  equals 
have  not  arisen  since  in  the  celebrated  Society,  for  scholar- 
ship and  mental  bondage  are  incompatible.  The  Jesuit 
Constitutions  order  that,  "Divergent  teachings  shall  not 
be  permitted,  either  in  preaching,  or  lecturing,  or  writ- 
ing." And  the  fifth  General  Congregation  of  the  Society 
declared  that  the  Fathers-delegate  who  met  for  the  pur- 
pose of  approving  the  Ratio  Stitdiorum  believed  it  should 
be  a  fundamental  rule — tamquam  fundamentum — "that 
the  Society  should  follow  a  uniform  set  of  opinions." 
And  again  the  Constitutions,  as  though  taking  the  last 
precaution  against  unshackled  scholarship,  decree  :  "Even 
in  regard  to  opinions  in  which  Catholic  doctors  are  at 
variance  care  must  be  taken  that  the  rule  of  the  Society 
be  uniformity."  Finally  in  our  own  day  Leo  XIII  took 
the  final  step  which  commits  the  Jesuits  forever  to  a 
rigidity  which  cannot  make  them  other  than  slaves  and 
incompetents  to  whom  it  must  be  a  species  of  outrage  to 
entrust  the  minds  of  young  men.  In  his  brief,  Gravissime 
Nos,  December  30,  1892,  Leo  binds  the  Jesuits  to  the 
philosophical  system  of  Thomas  Aquinas  and  to  an  abso- 
lute intellectual  despotism.     Were  the  directions  of  this 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  1 77 

brief  applied  to  the  schools  of  the  whole  world,  the  age 
of  semi-barbarism  would  be  upon  us  in  a  generation.  Bet- 
ter than  any  comment  will  be  the  words  of  this  criminal 
and  infamous  document  themselves.  I  give  a  few  of  the 
notable  passages: 

"For  the  obtaining,  therefore,  of  that  degree  of  con- 
cord and  charity  which  he  held  up  before  the  Society,  St. 
Ignatius  well  perceived  the  inadequacy  of  the  prevalent 
and  approved  custom  of  tolerating  divergent  opinions,, 
according  to  the  saying,  'In  doubtful  things,  liberty' ;  and 
he  deemed  it  necessary  to  exclude  these  varieties  of 
opinion  in  the  Society  and  expressly  forbade  them.  Hence 
it  is  a  rule  in  the  Society  to  ask  a  candidate,  before  he 
takes  his  vows,  'whether  he  is  prepared  to  set  aside  his 
own  judgment,  and  to  think  as  the  Society  commands' 
(Num  paratus  fuerit  ad  judicium  suum  submittendum, 
sentiendumque  ut  fuerit  constitutum  in  Societate). 

"Therefore,  the  character  and  written  laws  of  the  So- 
ciety have  excluded  that  freedom  of  thinking  which  many 
enjoy  outside  it.  *  *  *  For  although  a  Jesuit  who 
would  adopt  certain  views  which  were  both  highly  prob- 
able (valde  probabilius)  and  enjoyed  the  patronage  of 
learned  names,  would  be  acquitted  indeed  of  novelty, 
temerity  or  error ;  still,  if  these  views  were  not  in  accord 
with  the  Society's  prescribed  teaching,  he  would  certainly 
offend  against  that  one  sole  standard  of  opinion  which 
has  been  so  greatly  desired  and  so  highly  commended. 
Whoever  examines  the  rules  of  the  Society  concerning 
study  must  see  clearly  that  the  teaching  of  St.  Thomas, 


1^8  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

not  only  in  theology  but  in  philosophy,  is  to  be  followed 
absolutely."  The  Pope  adds  that  the  philosophy  of 
Aquinas  means  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  and  quotes  the 
following  rule  from  the  sixteenth  General  Congregation 
of  the  Jesuits ;  "Since  the  Society  has  adopted  the  phi- 
losophy of  Aristotle,  as  being  more  useful  to  theology, 
that  philosophy  must  be  rigidly  adhered  to."  Leo  con- 
tinues :  "Unless  the  philosophy  adopted  in  the  Society 
be  according  to  the  mind  and  plan  of  the  Angelic  Doctor, 
it  cannot  subserve  that  Scholastic  theology  which  all  are 
bound  to  follow.  *  *  *  It  is  obvious  then  that  whoso 
differs  in  a  point  of  theology  from  St.  Thomas,  violates 
by  this  very  fact  that  uniformity  of  opinion  which  Igna- 
tius ('Legifer  Pater')  constantly  commanded  should  pre- 
vail." The  "liberal"  Pontiff  then  gives  warning  to  the 
Jesuits  against  such  of  their  doctors  as  may  have  departed 
from  St.  Thomas :  "The  greatest  care  must  be  taken 
lest  from  study  of  the  writings  of  these  great  doctors 
there  result,  not  a  help  to  the  strengthening  of  Thomastic 
teaching,  but  the  disaster  of  infringing  upon  uniformity 
of  opinion.  This  uniformity  cannot  be  hoped  for  unless 
the  Society  adhere  to  one  author  and  only  one  (nisi 
Societatis  alumni  auctori  adhcereant  uni)."  Here  follows 
a  lecture  to  the  Jesuits,  admonishing  them  that  they  must 
not  try  to  interpret  their  constitutions  in  such  a  way  as 
will  permit  them  to  depart  from  Thomism  in  small  mat- 
ters, or  to  feel  free  in  questions  on  which  Aquinas  himself 
is  ambiguous.  "Let  no  one  by  vain  reasonings  persuade 
himself  that  the  opinions  of  the  Angelic  Doctor  are  am- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  I79 

biguous.  And  as  for  these  points  of  which  he  may  not 
have  treated,  his  principles  and  leading  ideas  must  be 
sedulously  studied,  so  that  the  solution  arrived  at  may 
be  nowise  out  of  harmony  with  them.  Pertinent  to  this 
matter  is  that  rule  of  the  twenty-third  Congregation :  'We 
give  solemn  warning  to  our  professors — both  of  theology 
and  philosophy,  and  to  our  scholastics, — that  they  do  not 
venture,  in  an  overweening  confidence  in  their  own  judg- 
ment, to  put  forth  temerariously,  and  without  advice,  new 
interpretations  of  theirs  which  they  fancy  express  the 
genuine  teaching  of  St.  Thomas.' '  In  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion whether  a  Jesuit  may  not  adopt  an  opinion  which, 
though  slightly  varying  from  strict  Thomism,  is  yet  taught 
in  some  Catholic  universities,  the  Pope  answers,  that,  ow- 
ing to  his  enforcement  of  the  Thomistic  standard,  there 
are  no  such  universities.  Then  follows  the  astounding 
conclusion  of  the  letter :  "Let  the  governors  of  the  So- 
ciety not  doubt  that  in  their  office  of  choosing  professors, 
their  authority  is  strengthened  by  Ours.  Let  them  then 
show  favor  and  grant  promotion  to  such  as  they  see  of  a 
submissive  spirit  in  the  study  of  St.  Thomas.  But  those 
whom  they  know  to  be  disinclined  to  Thomism  they  must 
exclude  from  professorships,  and  allow  no  respect  of  per- 
sons to  hinder  them  from  doing  so.  *  *  *  We 
decree  that  this,  Our  Brief,  shall  be  held  in  the  entire 
Society  of  Jesus,  as  the  definite  and  perpetual  law  govern- 
ing the  choice  of  opinions ;  *  *  *  that  copies  of  it 
be  given  to  such  of  the  Society  as  are  or  will  be  rulers, 
prefects  of  studies,  teachers  of  theology  and  philosophy, 


l8o  LETTERS  TO   HIS  HOLINESS 

and  book-censors ;  that  as  soon  as  it  shall  be  received,  and 
every  year  thereafter  at  the  resumption  of  studies,  it  be 
publicly  read  in  the  refectory,  in  all  colleges  or  other 
houses  of  the  Society  where  philosophy  and  theology  is 
taught.  We  decree,  moreover,  that  the  regulations  laid 
down  in  this  Brief  shall  be  in  force  forever — (Ea  omnia 
rata  Urmaqne  in  omne  tempus  pcrmaneant) — and  we  here 
and  now  declare  null  and  void  any  future  attempt  to 
change  them,  from  whomsoever  it  proceed." 

Comment  is  unnecessary  here.  Whoever  does  not  per- 
ceive that  this  document  is  a  high  crime  against  human 
personality,  and  an  infamous  outrage  upon  Truth,  knows 
nothing  whatever  of  either  personality  or  Truth.  Let  me 
simply  draw  attention  to  the  type  of  method  and  the  class 
of  men  that  are  educating  young  men  in  Catholic  col- 
leges and  seminaries.  Teachers  formed  upon  the  Papal 
standard  simply  cannot  be  disciples  of  Truth,  or  in  posses- 
sion of  elementary  intellectual  honesty.  If  I  am  sworn  and 
vowed  to  Aquinas  or  any  other  man,  so  that  I  cannot  fairly 
study  any  system  but  his,  and  have  pledged  myself  never 
to  adopt  a  view  divergent  from  his,  I  have  committed  a 
suicide  of  intellect  and  of  conscience,  and  I  am  grotesquely 
unfit  to  assume  the  office  of  training  young  minds  to  love 
and  search  for  Truth.  Intellectual  immorality  lies  and 
must  lie  at  the  basis  of  Catholic  education,  until  the 
idolatry  of  Italian  Popes  shall  disappear.  A  second  result 
that  follows  from  these  Roman  standards  is  incompetence 
in  Catholic  schools.  That  incompetence  is  conspicuous 
indeed.     The  Catholic  universities  of  the  world  are  as 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  l8l 

inferior  to  the  free  universities  as  is  the  civilization  of 
Arabia  to  that  of  the  United  States.  From  institutions 
wherein  Truth  and  not  an  Italian  bishop  dictates  methods, 
are  proceeding  publications  which  add  every  year  to  the 
sum  of  human  knowledge.  From  Catholic  universities  we 
get  either  sterility  and  silence,  or  desperate  efforts  to  up- 
hold ancient  theses  which  are  doomed  to  die.  If,  occa- 
sionally, a  Catholic  scholar  shows  himself  to  be  in  the 
front  rank  of  critical  research,  we  may  predict  his  deposi- 
tion with  the  same  certainty  as  we  should  calculate  the 
next  eclipse  of  the  sun.  There  are  Loisy,  Turmel, 
Batiffol,  Rose,  Fracasini  and  Genocchi  in  our  own  day 
to  prove  it.  From  our  Catholic  University  at  Washing- 
ton not  one  work  of  high  critical  value  in  twenty  years ! 
From  our  so  celebrated  American  Jesuits  not  one  publica- 
tion, even  of  the  second  rank  of  critical  scholarship,  in 
two  hundred  years  !  We  can  hardly  wonder  that  a  decline 
in  writers  and  scholars  has  often  been  noted  as  coincident 
with  the  incoming  of  the  Jesuits  as  teachers.  This  has 
been  particularly  observed  in  Prague,  Vienna  and  Ingol- 
stadt.  Ingolstadt  was  famous  until  the  Jesuits  took 
charge  of  it.  Then  fell  mediocrity  like  a  curse.  In  phi- 
losophy, which  is  their  pride  and  boast,  there  is  no  society 
of  scholars  so  miserably  represented  by  thinkers  of  the 
first  rank.  In  exegesis  and  biblical  criticism,  they  are  a 
Sahara  of  unproductiveness.  In  literature  and  critical 
study  of  the  classics  to  which  they  are  presumed  to  be 
devoted,  they  have  observed  their  vow  of  poverty  well. 
Their  art  and  architecture  are  the  scandal  of  these  depart- 


1 82  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

ments  of  fine  taste.  Montalembert  has  expressed  his 
amazement  that  their  training  results  in  so  vast  a  medi- 
ocrity. Mohler  says  of  them:  "Dogmatic  theology  in 
their  hands  becomes  lost  in  an  empty  skeleton  of  abstrac- 
tions, while  moral  theology  has  suffered  an  especially 
harmful  influence  from  them."  Their  chief  contribution 
to  the  science  of  morals  Las  been  that  excessive  subtlety, 
that  conscience-killing  casuistry  which  Pascal  holds  up 
to  reprobation  in  his  immortal  Letters.  Mabillon,  that 
mighty  Benedictine  scholar,  has  this  to  say  of  the  casuistry 
of  which  the  Jesuits  are  the  parents :  "Casuistry  is  the 
worst  offspring  of  scholasticism.  So  many  subtleties  have 
been  introduced  into  Moral  Theology  that  men,  by  over- 
subtilising  have  gone  beyond  the  bounds  of  reason ;  and 
to  our  sorrow  we  see  that  the  ethics  of  the  heathen  puts 
this  new  casuistry  to  shame."  De  Ranee,  the  founder  of 
La  Trappe  speaks  still  more  severely :  "The  moral 
teaching  of  most  Molinists  is  so  corrupt,  their  principles 
are  so  opposed  to  the  holiness  of  the  Gospel,  and  to  all 
the  rules  and  counsels  which  Jesus  has  given  in  His  own 
word  or  through  His  Saints,  that  nothing  hurts  me  more 
than  to  see  my  name  used  to  authorize  views  which  from 
my  heart  I  detest.  *  *  *  If  God  have  not  mercy  on 
the  world,  and  bring  to  naught  the  energy  with  which 
men  are  working  to  destroy  true  principles,  and  set  up 
others  which  are  not  true,  the  evil  will  grow  even  greater, 
and  we  shall  soon  see  universal  ruin."  Finally,  let  us  say, 
the  inferiority  of  the  Jesuits  even  in  the  literature  of  de- 
votion, is  known  to  the  world.    They  are  the  chief  sup- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  1 83 

porters  of  special  devotions,  of  arithmetical  piety,  of 
debilitating  excess  in  what  is  called  spiritual  direction, 
and  of  the  ghastly  vulgarity  of  worshiping  a  physical, 
fleshy  heart. 

It  appears  then,  Roman  Pontiff,  that  the  decrees  of 
the  Papacy  and  the  methods  of  the  Index,  along  with 
their  success  in  bringing  about  a  military  uniformity  of 
opinion,  have  been  tragically  efficient  also  in  producing 
within  the  Catholic  Church  an  organized  intellectual 
tyranny,  a  universal  mental  dishonesty,  and  a  woeful  edu- 
cational sterility.  The  situation  illustrates  what  I  have 
already  said,  that  the  aim  of  an  autocratic  hierarchy  is 
not  to  seek  Truth,  but  to  preserve  its  own  traditional 
ideas  and  prepossessions.  Where  in  Pontifical  docu- 
ments concerning  study,  or  in  Index-condemnations,  can 
we  find  one  word  of  exhortation  to  a  candid  search  for 
Truth  ?  Anathemas  against  independent  research  are 
common  enough.  Warnings  not  to  depart  from  medi- 
eval scholastics  and  ancient  fathers  are  never  lacking. 
But  the  following  of  Truth  whithersoever  it  leads  us, — 
nothing  at  all  of  this.  Intellectual  sincerity,  and  respect 
for  the  world's  earnest  endeavor  to  grow  in  Truth,  I 
defy  anyone  to  discover  in  all  the  vast  tomes  of  the 
Roman  Bullarium,  and  the  Decreta  of  the  Roman  Con- 
gregations. But  contempt  for  the  achievements  of  criti- 
cism and  non-Thomistic  philosophy,  and  bigoted  scorn 
for  every  species  of  modernism,  as  though  the  greatest 
scholars  of  our  own  time,  and  many  of  the  mightiest 
thinkers  of  all  time  were  scoundrels  and  fools — this,  one 


184  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

may  find  on  nearly  every  page  of  Vatican  literature. 
This,  on  the  part  of  a  Roman  autocracy  which  has  con- 
demned the  fundamental  truth  of  modern  astronomy  as 
formal  heresy,  supported  the  insane  revelations  of  Diana 
Vaughan,  propagated  spurious  devotions  and  confirmed 
monstrous  superstitions,  wears  not  the  look  of  a  di- 
vinely safeguarded  depository  of  the  complete  truth  of 
God,  but  resembles  rather  a  desperate  conspiracy  to 
check  the  diffusion  of  intelligence  among  men. 

The  fruits  of  intellectual  despotism  are  and  must  be 
intellectual  decay.  Needs  have  arisen  in  past  time  and 
are  pressing  hard  upon  us  now,  for  men  of  the  freest 
mind,  and  the  amplest  scholarship  to  defend  religion 
against  assaults  which  threaten  it  with  disaster ;  and  to 
adapt  religion  to  the  exigencies  which  have  arisen  as 
investigation  has  developed.  Such  men,  your  Roman 
and  Papal  policy  has  made  impossible  in  the  Catholic 
Church.  Not  a  single  adherent  of  Rome  stands  forth  as 
preeminent  from  the  controversy  with  the  Jansenists. 
Arnauld  and  Pascal  are  the  incomparable  intellects  of 
that  dispute.  Not  a  single  adherent  of  Rome  appears 
as  aught  but  a  puny  adversary  against  Voltaire  and  the 
Encyclopaedists.  Not  a  single  adherent  of  Rome  en- 
tered the  lists  with  even  respectable  ability  against  Kant. 
Not  a  single  adherent  of  Rome  lives  in  history  as  a 
worthy  opponent  to  Darwin.  Not  a  single  adherent  of 
Rome  distinguished  himself  as  more  than  mediocre  when 
Strauss  and  Renan  flung  their  firebrands  upon  the  world. 
Not  a  single  adherent  of  Rome  in  good  standing  today 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  185 

in  exegesis,  the  history  of  dogma  and  the  study  of 
religions,  is  worthy  to  be  named  upon  the  same  page 
with  Holtzmann,  Wellhausen,  Harnack  and  Frazer. 
Bitter  and  humiliating  as  the  confession  is,  it  must  be 
made,  and  whether  it  is  made  or  not,  the  voice  of  history 
is  loud  with  it,  that  the  Roman  persecution  of  scholars, 
insistence  upon  following  one  medieval  theorist,  as 
though  he  were  the  omniscient  God,  and  anathematizing 
of  the  perfected  methods  and  sure  results  of  modern 
research,  have  produced  barrenness,  an  appalling  barren- 
ness, which  leads  the  master-minds  of  today  to  consider 
Roman  Catholicism  as  simply  a  negligible  factor  in  all 
departments  of  critical  investigation.  To  such  a  pass 
has  it  come  indeed  that  unless  a  Catholic  defends  false 
and  superstitious  legends,  argues  for  hopelessly  battered 
theses,  and  twists  history  where  truth  might  hurt  the 
Papacy,  he  is  looked  upon  askance,  is  the  object  of  quiet 
whisperings  if  not  open  denunciation,  to  the  effect  that 
he  is  a  liberal,  and  rests  as  a  burden  upon  the  conscience 
of  his  bishop,  as  one  infected  with  modernism.  Cardinal 
Newman  said  as  much  half  a  century  ago  when,  in 
answer  to  someone  who  urged  him  to  undertake  the 
publication  of  an  historical  review,  he  wrote :  "Nothing 
could  be  better  than  an  historical  review,  but  who  could 
bear  it?  Unless  one  doctored  all  one's  facts,  one  would 
be  thought  a  bad  Catholic"  (quoted  in  the  Dublin  Review 
for  January,  1907,  and  a  short  time  before  in  the  Jesuit 
periodical,  The  Month}.  It  is  not  from  such  methods, 
your  Holiness,  that  the  scholarship  of  today  will  be  over- 


l86  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

thrown,  or  the  good-will  of  intelligent  men  conciliated. 
Rather  it  is  from  such  methods  that  we  shall  have  Biblical 
Commissions  flagrantly  defying  the  critical  intellect  of 
the  world,  and  Roman  Popes  covering  Catholics  with 
humiliation  by  solemnly  declaring  that  the  Hebrew  patri- 
archs delighted  in  the  contemplation  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
and  believed  in  the  Immaculate  Conception. 


XXI 

The    Opportunity    of    Catholicism 

Your  Holiness: 

I  have  now  finished  the  first  and  greater  part  of  my 
task,  which  is  to  set  forth  frankly  the  reasons  for  that 
antipathy  to  Rome  which  has  been  for  three  centuries 
so  striking  a  feature  in  the  religious  life  of  the  most 
progressive  and  enlightened  nations  of  the  world.  I 
have  tried  to  show,  what  I  think  must  be  obvious  to 
every  man  of  sound  sense,  that  this  antipathy  does  not 
rest  on  blind  bigotry  or  unreasonable  malice,  but  is  based 
upon  the  notorious  past  history  and  the  perfectly  evident 
present  policy  of  the  Roman  See.  The  Papal  and  Italian 
autocracy  is  considered  by  the  world  to  be  in  theoretical 
and  practical  hostility  to  the  main  principles  of  modern 
civilization — to  freedom  of  conscience,  democracy,  re- 
spect for  individual  personality,  and  liberty  of  intellect. 
How  it  is  that  peoples  who  were  once  in  union  with 
Rome  have  arrived  at  so  momentous  a  change  of  con- 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  1 87 

viction,  the  foregoing  letters,  I  think,  will  help  toward 
explaining. 

Holy  Father,  if  you  have  any  desire  to  emerge  out  of 
the  darkness  of  inexcusable  sophistication  which  sur- 
rounds you,  and  look  honestly  at  reality,  these  letters,  or 
any  other  similar  expression  of  candid  criticism,  may 
help  you  in  no  small  degree.  If  you  wish  to  make 
Catholicism  respectable,  and  avert  from  it  the  ruin  and 
death  which  now  appear  inevitable,  is  it  possible  for  you 
not  to  see  that  no  other  means  will  avail  to  this  end  than 
the  spiritualizing,  and,  let  us  not  shrink  from  the  word, 
the  modernizing  of  the  Church?  If  the  Catholic  religion 
is  to  continue  holding  to  persecution  in  principle,  to  the 
present  doctrine  of  church  and  state,  to  Italian  abso- 
lutism, to  the  prevailing  attitude  toward  indulgences  and 
other  superstitions,  and  to  its  war  of  extermination  upon 
critical  scholars,  then  may  we  as  well  begin  to  write  its 
epitaph ;  then  may  those  honest  students  who,  in  the  teeth 
of  despair  have  been  faintly  hoping  for  some  spiritualiz- 
ing change,  as  well  go  forth  into  exile,  and  seek  peace 
in  a  strange  land,  since  peace  and  even  honor  are  becom- 
ing impossible  in  what  they  loved  as  home. 

That  the  changes  which  spirituality  and  scholarship  de- 
mand from  Roman  Catholicism  are  profound  and  even 
perilous,  there  can  be  no  denying.  The  perplexity  in- 
deed is  awful.  To  remain  as  of  old  means  certain  death ; 
to  obey  the  summons  of  Reform  may  mean  distress  and 
scandal  to  many,  and  great  injury  to  some.  But  surely 
we  cannot   lessen   the  gravity  of  the   situation  by   not 


l88  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

thinking  of  it.  Think  of  it  we  must  in  prudence ;  pro- 
vide for  it  we  must  in  conscience.  The  adaptations 
called  for  need  not  after  all,  be  the  work  of  a  day.  Only 
let  the  Roman  Church  begin  to  show  even  common 
courtesy  to  our  civilization,  and  in  this,  small  as  it  is, 
we  shall  recognize  the  beginning  of  a  better  day,  a  sign 
of  life  in  the  midst  of  death.  Let  Catholics  be  allowed 
to  hold  that  freedom  of  conscience  is  an  inalienable  right 
of  man.  Let  some  Pope  speak  out  a  brave  word  of  exe- 
cration upon  the  Inquisition.  Let  there  be  liberty  for 
Catholic  professors  to  teach  that  union  of  Church  and 
State  is  not  demanded  by  the  Christian  religion  as  an 
ideal.  Let  indulgences  and  all  other  heathenism  be  abol- 
ished. Let  a  representative  government,  autonomous 
local  synods,  and  home-rule  generally,  supersede  the 
present  Italian  and  Papal  despotism.  Let  scholars  hold 
the  modernist  views  as  to  the  nature  of  dogma  and  the 
function  of  authority.  Above  all — and  this  is  the  one 
condition  which  will  prevent  these  concessions  from 
resulting  in  any  great  measure  of  harm — let  the  whole 
endeavor  of  the  Church  and  hierarchy  be  to  promote  the 
Christ-ideal  on  earth.  Roman  Pontiff,  too  seldom  have 
you  and  your  predecessors  lifted  the  hand  of  healing; 
too  often  the  brutal  fist  of  tyranny.  Go  out  among  the 
poor.  Fling  aside  these  apostate  ambitions  for  a  Papal 
kingdom.  Strip  off  the  Church's  death-clothes  of  for- 
malism, intrigue,  pomp,  superstition.  Turn  the  vast  en- 
ergies of  official  Catholicism  toward  simplicity,  fraternity, 
sympathy.     Preach  the  Christ-life.     Live  the  Christ-life. 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  189 

Enkindle  over  all  the  earth  a  sacred  and  consuming  fire 
of  devotion  to  Jesus  the  meek  Child  of  the  Infinite. 
Unloose  the  captive  aspirations  of  mankind,  by  showing 
them  a  divinity  of  service  and  a  Deity  of  love  to  which 
men  would  be  consecrated  wholly,  if  they  but  saw  it 
clearly.  Not  intellectual  but  spiritual  is  the  religious 
problem  of  the  world.  Whether  Moses  wrote  a  Jewish 
law  or  John  a  Christian  gospel  is  of  utterly  insignificant 
interest.  The  -Christ-life  we  know.  The  Christ  we 
possess  and  worship.  God  is  within  us  to  love.  God 
awaits  us  as  Judge.  Life  is  divinely  beautiful  and  sa- 
credly serious.  What  need  we  more?  Let  these  truths 
grow  from  more  to  more.  Let  the  Church's  beauty,  as 
the  beauty  of  the  King's  daughters,  be  from  within !  Let 
vain  philosophies  and  hoary  bigotries  be  forever  buried — 
and  only  human  service  and  heavenly  love  remain  upon 
the  altars  of  our  faith!  Oh!  then  will  the  Church  be 
God's  kingdom:  then  will  no  barriers  of  men's  making 
divide  into  hostile  sections  the  children  of  the  Infinite 
Father,  the  kinsmen  of  the  immortal  Christ. 

Towards  this  lighting  of  the  new  fire  of  a  purified 
religion,  towards  this  spiritual  confederation  of  the 
world  in  devotion  to  one  another  and  to  God,  the  Papacy 
and  Catholicism  could  contribute  incalculable  assistance. 
But  whither  the  vision  of  that  consummation  flies,  hope 
refuses  to  follow.  In  collision  with  the  actual  state  of 
Roman  Catholicism,  our  dreams  are  shattered  into  frag- 
ments. The  Papacy  will  not  change.  The  old  divisions 
and  antipathies  have  yet  long  to  live.     And  the  day  is 


I90  LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS 

still  far  distant  when  men  shall  see  that  pure  religion 
and  spiritual  worship  rest  not  upon  meaningless  trans- 
cendental metaphysics,  but  upon  the  living  Presence  of 
Deity  without  us  and  within.  Let  me  cease  then,  even 
as  a  formality  to  address  an  unheeding  hierarchy,  and 
say  the  few  words  that  I  have  still  to  speak  in  this  letter 
to  the  earnest  and  religious  men  who  may  have  followed 
me  thus  far. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  incumbent  upon  me  in  common 
fairness  to  say  that  the  criticisms  and  animadversions  of 
the  preceding  pages  concern  only  official,  Papal,  Roman 
Catholicism.  The  soul  of  the  Catholic  or  any  other 
Church  they  do  not  touch  at  all.  The  contribution  to 
the  world's  religious  experience  which  has  been  made  by 
the  sanctity,  heroism  and  poetry  of  Catholicism  has  been 
of  incalculable  value.  Whatever  be  the  ultimate  form 
of  the  religion  of  civilized  mankind,  that  religion  must 
take  many  of  its  elements,  and  these  perhaps  its  best, 
from  the  mother-church  of  Christendom.  Let  no  one 
then  fail  to  perceive  the  distinction  made  in  these  letters 
between  Romanism  as  an  autocracy  and  Catholicism  as  a 
religion,  and  include  in  the  reprobation  of  the  one  the 
high  spiritual  merit  of  the  other. 

In  the  second  place,  I  would  have  my  non-Catholic 
readers  to  bear  in  mind  that  Catholics  no  less  than  they, 
repudiate,  or  would  if  they  knew  them,  the  destructive 
principles  of  the  Italian  Curia.  But  Catholics  do  not 
know  them.  Catholics,  taken  as  a  body,  believe  in  toler- 
ation as  a  principle,  disunion  of  church  and  state  as  a 


LETTERS  TO   HIS   HOLINESS  191 

principle,  and  freedom  of  research  as  a  principle.  They 
are  bnt  little  aware  of  the  extent  to  which  these  funda- 
mental ideas  of  the  civilized  world  are  rejected  by  the 
official  leaders  of  their  church.  Moreover,  enlightened 
Catholics  do  not  approve,  but  are  disgusted  with  the 
superstitions  and  follies  which  it  has  pleased  the  hier- 
archy to  tolerate  and  encourage.  I  am  convinced  that 
I  shall  do  a  service  to  Truth  and  to  undefiled  religion,  if 
I  help  toward  strengthening  in  this  class  of  Catholics  the 
desire  and  the  determination  to  speak  out  boldly  for  re- 
form. Reform  in  the  Roman  communion  is  always  from 
the  people ;  never,  until  the  coercion  of  public  opinion 
becomes  irresistible,  from  Curias  and  Popes. 

A  courageous  and  intelligent  laity  is  the  sole  hope  for 
a  better  day.  Meantime  the  non-Catholics  of  our  country 
may  assist  toward  so  desirable  a  result  if,  refraining  from 
so  vulgar  and  un-christian  a  sin  as  bigotry,  they  foster 
the  spirit  of  fraternity  and  good-will.  Thus  quietly  work- 
ing for  the  removal  of  the  stupid  antipathies  which  have 
so  long  divided  us,  they  will  deepen  that  conviction, 
already  so  dear  to  the  American  mind,  that  soul  and 
character  are  above  decrees,  encyclicals,  and  even  creeds ; 
and  will  so  strengthen  the  bonds  of  human  brotherhood 
and  Christian  fellowship,  that  every  theology  which  is 
an  obstacle  to  brotherhood  and  fellowship  will  fall  to 
pieces,  and  be  buried  with  the  hideous  hatreds  and  crimi- 
nal dissensions  of  the  past.  It  is  love  that  will  conquer 
enmity.  It  is  the  spread  of  the  spirit  of  brotherhood,  of 
service,  and  of  insistence  upon  the  essential  simplicities 


I92  LETTERS  TO    HIS   HOLINESS 

of  Christ,  that  will  gain  the  victory  over  exclusive  or- 
thodoxies and  vindictive  theologies.  We  may  all  profit- 
ably keep  in  mind  that  if  we  worthily  fulfil  the  twofold 
duty  of  holding  ourselves  true  to  the  Infinite  Ideal  of  all 
our  hopes,  aspirations  and  affections,  and  of  seeking  op- 
portunities of  kind  and  merciful  service  to  one  another, 
we  are  obeying  the  law  and  the  prophets  wholly.  Let 
this  but  come  to  pass,  and  whatever  becomes  of  hier- 
archies, Christ  shall  reign  among  men. 

To  Catholics  one  word.  Two  duties  and  responsibili- 
ties confront  us :  To  seek  Truth  candidly,  honestly, 
bravely,  and  to  cultivate  in  ourselves  and  as  far  as  pos- 
sible in  others,  that  form  of  religious  living  which  best 
answers  to  the  standards  of  Truth,  and  best  develops 
and  elevates  the  free  personality  within  us.  With  Truth 
set  before  an  upright  mind,  and  the  Christ-ideal  before 
a  reverent  heart,  the  result  of  religious  thought  and 
investigation  cannot  but  be  salutary  and  safe. 


PART  II— FAITH  AND  CRITICISM 


CHAPTER  I 

Phases  of  Dogmatic  Interpretation 

"OEFORE  concluding  these  letters  I  feel  that  I  should 
—  say  a  few  words  on  a  graver  subject  than  I  have  yet 
treated — the  subject,  namely,  of  doctrinal  ideas  as  af- 
fected by  modern  criticism.  Delicate  as  this  matter  is, 
no  present  or  future  movement  of  reform  within  the 
Catholic  Church  can,  in  reason,  avoid  touching  it.  With 
terrible  urgency  a  doctrinal  crisis  is  thrusting  itself  upon 
us,  and  face  it  we  must.  The  late  encyclical  on  modern- 
ism with  the  Papal  allocutions  and  addresses  on  the  same 
topic  have  brought  the  trouble  to  a  head ;  and  it  devolves 
upon  modernists  to  prove  that  the  changed  views  of 
exegesis  and  theology  which  study  has  forced  upon 
them,  have  a  far  different  foundation  than  the  incurable 
itch  for  novelty  and  the  reckless  temper  of  irreverent 
criticism  with  which  they  are  reproached.  Moreover,  it 
is  my  hope  that,  while  conceding  much  to  the  researches 
of  modern  scholars,  I  may  speak  some  reassuring  word 
to  those  that  have  been  disturbed  by  their  study  of  Chris- 
tian origins  and  Catholic  dogma,  and  point  out  to  them 
that  the  essential  spirit  and  teaching  of  religion  are  abso- 
lutely unharmed  by  the  freest  and  fullest  investigation. 
I  am  convinced  that  while  criticism  has  damaged  tradi- 
tional theology  almost  beyond  recognition,  it  has  left  not 

195 


I96  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

a  scar  on  the  beautiful  face  of  religion.  Perhaps  some 
who  are  undergoing  the  distress  of  disentangling  theology 
and  religion  and  are  still  perplexed  to  know  whether  the 
unsettling  of  the  one  be  not  the  downfall  of  the  other, 
may  be  encouraged  and  set  right  by  the  simple  word  of 
one  who  has  passed  through  a  similar  trial. 

We  have  been  brought  up  in  the  idea  that  God's 
revelation  was  given  to  man  closed  up  as  it  were  in  a 
box,  or  series  of  boxes.  God  revealed  how  the  world 
was  created,  and  how  man  fell.  God  revealed  the  Deca- 
logue, and  the  vast  system  of  liturgical  law  contained  in 
Exodus,  Leviticus  and  Deuteronomy.  God  revealed  the 
knowledge,  and  inspired  the  predictions  of  the  coming 
Messiah.  With  the  advent  of  the  new  covenant,  God 
through  Christ  left  on  earth  in  charge  of  His  church  a 
body  of  doctrine,  which,  just  as  the  Lord  delivered  it, 
and  the  apostles  preached  it,  exists  today  in  the  belief- 
system  of  Roman  Catholicism.  Inasmuch  as  the  Bible 
contains  the  record  of  these  successive  vouchsafings  of 
the  Divine  Mind,  the  Bible,  taken  of  course  ad  literam, 
was  examined  for  texts  in  proof  of  the  various  Christian 
dogmas.  Whenever  the  literal  sense  of  Scripture  bore 
but  remotely  upon  the  doctrine  to  be  supported,  recourse 
was  had  at  first  to  a  fantastic  system  of  allegory,  in  order 
that  in  one  way,  if  not  in  another,  Christian  tenets  be 
shown  to  exist  in  at  least  one  of  the  boxes  that  make  up 
the  Biblical  revelation.  Thus  Clement  of  Rome  makes 
Rahab's  scarlet  cord  a  prophetic  witness  to  Christ's  blood- 
redemption  (c-12).     Thus  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  finds 


PHASES    OF   DOGMATIC    INTERPRETATION  197 

a  momentous  prefigurement  in  the  circumcision  by  Abra- 
ham of  his  three  hundred  and  eighteen  servants.  For 
318  may  be  expressed  by  the  Greek  letters  T-I-H.  T 
represents  the  cross ;  and  IH  are  the  first  two  letters  of 
Jesus,  spelled  in  Greek.  This  reasoning  is  adopted  also 
by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  and 
Hilary.  In  like  manner  Justin  discovers  the  twelve  apos- 
tles in  the  twelve  bells  on  the  robes  of  the  Jewish  high- 
priest.  St.  Augustine  bases  a  foundation  for  the  four 
cardinal  virtues  in  the  four  rivers  of  Eden.  Even  so  late 
as  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Tostatus  discerns 
a  proof  of  the  Trinity  in  the  three  apostles  who  beheld 
the  Transfiguration,  and  also  in  Shem,  Ham  and  Japheth. 

Now  the  very  existence  of  an  allegorical  school  is  proof 
that  the  literal  meaning  of  scripture  was  considered  to 
be  somewhat  deficient  as  a  demonstration  of  dogma.  I 
do  not  give  this  as  the  raison  d'etre  of  allegorical  inter- 
pretation, but  certainly  one  of  the  motives  for  its  wide 
diffusion  was  that  it  forced  Scripture  to  maintain  what 
Scripture  unforced  would  either  not  maintain  at  all,  or 
maintain  inadequately. 

As  time  went  on,  the  slender  foundation  in  the  Bible 
for  certain  beliefs,  and  the  obvious  weakness  of  the  alle- 
gorical method,  led  apologists  to  contend  that  Scripture 
was  not  the  sole  source  of  theological  proof,  but  that  we 
must  supplement  it  by  unwritten  apostolic  tradition.  So 
when  dogmas  like  that  of  the  Immaculate  Conception 
or  the  sacramental  character  of  matrimony  could  not  be 
proved  from  the  written  word,  the  unwritten  word  was 


198  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

appealed  to  and  the  world  was  challenged  to  gainsay  it. 
In  our  day  this  device  in  its  turn  was  found  wanting, 
and  the  development-theory  came  in  under  the  patronage 
of  a  great  name.  According  to  this  conception,  the 
greater  truths  of  doctrine  contain  implied  within  them, 
or  attached  to  them  in  the  way  of  necessary  corollaries, 
other  truths  which  theological  study  gradually  discovers 
and  ecclesiastical  authority  officially  proclaims.  Thus, 
as  theological  reflection  took  in  the  profounder  implica- 
tions of  Christ's  divinity,  it  came  to  be  seen  that  the 
God-man's  mother  must  be  absolutely  sinless,  even  to 
the  extent  of  freedom  from  that  inculpable  sin  in  which 
all  descendants  of  Adam  are  born.  The  Immaculate 
Conception — to  confine  ourselves  fo  this  example — was 
from  the  beginning  a  part  of  the  "deposit"  of  Christian 
faith.  But  at  first  it  was  hidden  beneath  the  more  fun- 
damental truth  of  the  Lord's  divinity,  to  be  brought  forth 
and  placed  upon  its  own  feet,  as  it  were,  only  after  the 
Christian  mind  had  explored  the  full  meaning  of  the 
central  fact  of  orthodox  theology. 

Finally  some  modernists  maintain  that  both  the  un- 
written-tradition-theory and  the  development-hypothesis 
fall  to  the  ground,  the  one  because  it  cannot  stand  the 
test  of  history,  the  other  because  it  is  out  of  accord  with 
experience  and  life.  The  expansion  of  dogma,  they  hold, 
is  not  due  to  expert  reasoners  and  syllogism-makers,  but 
to  the  corporate  growing  life  of  Christian  souls.  Dogmas 
are  not  a  result  of  ratiocination,  but  of  living;  not  the 
conclusions  of  an  argument,  but  the  term  of  vital  spiritual 


PHASES    OF   DOGMATIC    INTERPRETATION  199 

processes.  Men  have  arrived  at  belief  in  Christ's  divin- 
ity not  by  dialectics,  but  by  beholding  Him  with  the 
soul's  eye,  living  His  life,  and  experiencing  His  power 
to  bless  and  sanctify  and  save  them.  Theological  rea- 
soning they  admit  is  useful  and  inevitable,  but  Christian 
living  comes  first.  Men  lived  by  the  divine  Christ,  before 
Nicaea  defined  the  hypostatic  union.  Men  would  have 
continued  to  live  by  the  divine  Christ  had  the  words 
hypostasis,  substantia  and  subsistentia  never  been  known 
in  philosophy.  It  is  not  because  of  Nicaea  that  we  follow 
Christ,  but  because  of  Christ  Himself.  Moreover,  when 
theology,  whether  by  the  voice  of  doctors,  Popes,  or  coun- 
cils, gives  philosophical  and  intellectualistic  formulation 
to  a  doctrine  that  had  been  already  lived  for  generations, 
and  perhaps  for  centuries  before,  it  gives  and  must  give 
that  formulation  in  the  language  of  current  philosophy. 
And  as  no  philosophy  can  be  assured  to  us  as  a  final  and 
exhaustive  philosophy,  but  must,  in  the  nature  of  human 
thought,  be  largely  conjectural  and  provisional,  the  dog- 
matic formulas  which  adopt  the  ideas  and  the  termi- 
nology of  a  particular  philosophy  must,  as  formulas,  be 
also  conjectural  and  provisional,  and  cannot  possibly  be 
final. 

For  example,  the  divine  Christ  was  known  and  lived  as 
such,  before  the  Christian  Church  could  satisfactorily  and 
concordantly  express  Christ's  divineness  in  philosophical 
terms.  Then  came  Nicaea,  which  formulates  the  Christ- 
divineness  in  highly  technical  language  taken  over  from 
the  philosophy  of  Aristotle.     It  declared  that  Christ  is  a 


200  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

God-Person  who  added  to  His  God-nature  a  man-nature, 
this  man-nature,  however,  not  possessing  a  man-person, 
as  all  other  man-natures  do,  but  being  crowned  by  the 
God-Person  of  the  Christ  Deity.  That  is,  Christ,  though 
having  a  human  nature,  has  not  a  human  personality ;  but 
His  Deity-Personality  takes  into  His  Deity-Nature  a  hu- 
man nature  in  hypostatic  union.  This  is  far  more  intri- 
cate than  the  "Christ  is  the  Son  of  God",  of  Mark's  gos- 
pel, or  the  "Christ  is  God  revealed  to  us",  of  the  apostolic 
Fathers.  But  were  it  only  more  intricate,  no  great  matter. 
Besides  being  intricate,  what  becomes  of  the  Nicsean  defi- 
nition to  a  man  who  either  is  baffled  and  perplexed  by 
Aristotelian  terminology,  or  wholly  rejects  it?  Here  is 
a  man,  let  us  say,  to  whom  Christ  is  the  divine  righteous- 
ness and  goodness,  exhibited  humanwise,  but  who  scorns 
the  Aristotelian  psychology  and  metaphysics,  believing 
that  "substance",  "person",  "nature",  are  terms  too 
transcendental  to  be  of  the  slightest  use  as  vehicles  of  re- 
ligious teaching ;  or  it  may  be,  thinking  that  modern 
psychology  has  so  immensely  broadened  the  concept  of 
personality  as  to  make  Aristotle's  closed-compartment 
category  a  pitiably  primitive  representation  of  reality.  If 
such  a  man  cannot  find  room  in  his  mind  for  the  terms 
of  the  Nicasan  definition,  far  from  being  helped  by  it,  he 
is  vexed  and  distressed  by  it.  Yet  he  says,  "Christ  is 
divine" ;  and  that  proposition  may  come  from  a  mind  and 
heart  that  are  utterly  devoted  to  the  Son  of  God.  The 
inward  faith  in  and  appreciation  of  Christ's  divineness  are 
his  soul's  life ;  but  the  philosophical  system  in  which  the 


PHASES   OF   DOGMATIC    INTERPRETATION  201 

official  formula  is  delivered  to  him,  shocks  and  disturbs 
his  intellect.  Must  we  say,  "That  man  cannot  belong  to 
Christ  because  he  does  not  belong  to  Aristotle"  ?  That 
would  be  absurd.  What,  in  reason,  we  must  say,  is : 
"That  man  lives  by  Christ's  divineness — and  that  is  the 
great  thing  after  all.  If  he  cannot  accept  the  intellectual- 
istic  expression  which  it  pleased  the  bishops  of  Nicaea  to 
proclaim,  there  is  no  harm  in  that.  The  vital  truth  is  im- 
mortal, the  technical  formulation  of  it  is  transitory.  Let 
him,  if  he  cares  to  formulate  intellectually  what  he  is 
living  spirtually,  find  a  formula  that  agrees  with  his  own 
philosophy  and  general  modes  of  thought.  This  formula 
too,  will  be  transitory,  but  his  interior  life,  which  is  bound 
to  God  through  Christ,  is  not  transitory,  but  is  a  mani- 
festation of  essential  and  eternal  religion  and  truth". 

There  appears  then  to  be  a  substantial  basis  for  the 
opinion  that  dogmatic  formulas  are  not  fixed  but  flexible, 
and  that  religous  experience  is  a  more  fundamental  factor 
than  theological  speculation  in  the  expansion  of  dogma. 

Still  another  class  of  modernists,  however,  must  be  con- 
sidered. These  maintain  that  the  religious  problem  is 
hardly  more  than  touched,  even  when  this  new  view  of 
dogmatic  definitions  is  demonstrated.  For  we  have  re- 
maining for  our  study,  the  nature  of  religious  experience 
and  growth  itself,  and  the  question  of  how  far  this  expe- 
rience and  growth  in  the  Christian  body  corporate,  must 
be  controlled  by  true  philosophy  and  thorough  historical 
criticism.  For  religious  experience  can  be  accumulated 
upon  a  false  historical  foundation,  and  dogmatic  systems 


202  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

can  expand  toward  error  as  well  as  toward  Truth.  Not 
all  growth  is  sound  growth ;  and  in  the  matter  of  creeds 
mere  development  is  not  the  test  of  health,  but  develop- 
ment in  the  right  direction,  development  which  the  trained 
intelligence  can  pronounce  true.  Antecedent  therefore 
to  all  other  questions  is  this :  Does  theology  give  us  a 
conception  of  Christ  and  of  His  teachings  which  a  critical 
study  of  His  life  can  approve ;  and  does  it  present  us  a 
view  of  the  universe  which  the  mature  and  educated  mind 
can  accept  ?  This  question  it  is  all  the  more  vitally  neces- 
sary to  study,  because  the  history  of  religions  shows 
clearly  that  theologies,  in  growing  from  simplicity  to 
complexity,  practically  always  incorporate  a  new  error 
with  every  additional  inch  of  stature.  The  founders  of 
religions,  for  example,  are  magnified  by  legend,  as  the 
living  memories  of  them  disappear.  If  a  religion  has  a 
written  Bible,  marvelous  stories  of  its  divine  authorship 
are  sure  to  arise.  Spurious  traditions  come  to  the  sur- 
face and  are  made  the  basis  of  new  doctrines  by  that 
omnipresent  worker,  the  theologian.  Rites  are  invested 
with  an  efficacy  probably  undreamt  of  by  their  originators. 
Miracles  accumulate  ;  prophecies  are  brought  to  light ;  and 
in  general,  a  great  apparatus  of  mystery,  dogma  and  de- 
votion, which  is  of  later  and  purely  human  elaboration, 
comes  to  be  considered  as  aboriginal  and  divine. 

This  is  development ;  this  is  religious  experience ;  but, 
whatever  its  spiritual  value  may  have  been,  perhaps  to 
millions,  it  cannot  persist  when  Truth  summons  it  to  its 
austere  tribunal  and  rejects  it.     This  critical  research 


PHASES    OF   DOGMATIC    INTERPRETATION  203 

then  into  the  history  and  origins  of  doctrine  is  precisely 
the  discipline  and  the  sole  discipline,  by  which  we  may 
discover  what  is  faulty,  legendary  and  extravagant,  in 
the  claims  of  any  theology,  even  of  Christian  theology. 
The  results  of  applying  this  method  to  Christianity,  as  a 
scheme  of  doctrine,  may  be  illustrated  in  the  following 
examples. 


CHAPTER  II 
The  Old  Testament  in  .New  Light 

A  N  open-minded  study  of  the  Old  Testament  proves 
"^^  indisputably  that  the  old  ideas  of  revelation,  as  a 
package  handed  down  from  heaven  to  earth,  and  of  in- 
spiration as  a  divine  safeguarding  of  the  Biblical  author 
against  the  influences  of  myth,  legend  and  superstition, 
are  untenable.  The  Bible  is  demonstrated  both  by  internal 
criticism  and  by  the  method  of  comparative  religious  study, 
to  be  the  product  of  slow  and  often  extremely  faulty  hu- 
man elaboration,  and  to  contain  many  of  the  grosser  re- 
ligious elements  of  the  ages  in  which  its  several  books 
were  written.  Not  that  there  are  not  in  it  conspicuous  signs 
of  an  overruling  Providence.  In  no  nation  is  there  lacking 
evidence  of  God's  illumination,  and  of  His  Will  to  lead 
men  from  lower  to  higher  life,  from  baser  to  more  pure 
religion.  Certainly  in  Hebrew  history  the  devout  mind  will 
realize  the  work  of  the  Power  that  governs  men,  in  the 
sublime  term  of  Israel's  religious  evolution — the  ethical 
monotheism  of  the  prophets.  But,  while  we  may  fully  and 
most  reverently  admit  this  Providence  in  the  development 
of  Judaism,  we  still  are  bound  to  take  cognizance  of  the 
fact  that  the  Jewish  people,  in  the  laborious  processes  of 
growth  toward  the  idea  and  ideal  of  prophetism,  passed 
through  religious  experiences,  and  adopted  many  forms  of 

205 


206  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

belief,  rite  and  legend,  in  which  we  perceive  the  ordinary 
vicissitudes  and  the  common  laws  of  growth  of  all  other 
religious  movements.  The  Bible,  which  contains  the 
record  of  these  vicissitudes,  is  by  the  very  fact  of  con- 
taining them,  one  of  the  most  human  books  in  the  world. 
Divine  we  do  not  deny  it  to  be ;  but  divine,  in  the  old 
orthodox  sense  which  would  force  us  to  believe  that  God 
is  the  author  of  it,  thereby  lifting  it  entirely  above  the 
normal  lot  and  condition  of  religious  scriptures,  so  that 
we  must  take  it  literally,  and  account  each  book,  chapter, 
and  even  verse,  as  divinely  guaranteed,  it  is  in  these 
days  simply  impossible  for  an  educated  man  to  consider  it. 
Centuries  before  a  word  of  Hebrew  literature  was 
written,  Palestine  had  been  saturated  with  the  religious 
ideas  of  the  greatest  nation  of  remote  antiquity,  Babylonia. 
Babylonian  influence  was  predominant  in  Palestine  from 
about  3000  B.  C.  to  1500  B.  C,  and  thither  came  the 
legends,  myths,  cosmogony,  and  general  theology  which 
had  been  elaborated  into  a  vast  system  and  an  enormous 
literature  in  the  Tigris-Euphrates  valley.  Before  tribes 
of  later  civilization — such  as  the  Canaanites  and  the  He- 
brews— had  speculated  upon  the  origin  of  the  world,  the 
nature  of  men  and  gods,  and  the  problems  of  suffering, 
sin,  and  death,  the  Babylonians  had  set  their  minds  to 
these  questions  and  had  produced  concerning  them  a  huge 
body  of  mythological  doctrine  from  which  it  was  inevit- 
able that  the  ruder  clans  which  grew  up  in  a  Babylonian 
atmosphere  should  borrow.  The  very  names  of  Canaanite 
places  and  Hebrew  personages  disclose  often  a  Babylonian 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT   IN    NEW    LIGHT  20J 

origin.  Jeru-salem  is  derived  from  the  Babylonian  god 
Salman ;  Ashtarte,  from  the  goddess  Ishtar ;  Nebo  and 
Sinai,  from  the  gods  Nebo  and  Sin ;  Samson  and  Beth 
Shemesh,  from  the  sun-god  Shamash ;  Milkah  and  Sarah, 
the  names  of  the  wives  of  Nabor  and  Abraham,  from 
the  goddesses  attendant  upon  Sin.  Abraham  itself  is 
Babylonian ;  so  are  Jacob  and  Joseph,  originally  Yaqub-el 
and  Yasup-el ;  and  Mordecai  and  Esther  are  but  slightly 
changed  from  Marduk  and  Ishtar,  two  of  the  greatest 
Mesapotomian  divinities. 

But  ideas,  as  well  as  names,  were  taken  over  from 
Babylon.  There  is  a  Babylonian  flood-story,  from  which 
the  Noah  narrative  is  most  evidently  adopted.  Ut-napish- 
tim — the  Babylonian  Noah — is  told  by  the  gods  to  build 
an  ark  against  the  coming  disaster  of  a  mighty  deluge. 
The  measurements  of  the  vessel  are  minutely  detailed. 
Into  it*Ut-mapishtim  brings  "the  seed  of  all  living  things". 
When  the  rain  ceases  he  sends  out  a  dove  which  returns 
to  the  ark ;  then  a  swallow,  which  also  comes  back ;  and 
finally,  a  raven,  which  does  not  reappear,  in  token  that 
the  catastrophe  is  over  and  the  flood  receding.  Ut-napish- 
tim  lands  at  last  and  straightway  offers  sacrifice  to  the 
gods.  The  creation-account  of  Genesis  is  hardly  less  evi- 
dently influenced  from  the  same  source.  According  to 
the  older  cosmogony  the  god  Marduk  slays  the  chaos- 
monster  Tiamat,  and  makes  the  earth  and  the  heavens  out 
of  her  divided  body. 

Apsu  and  Mummu  are  other  names  for  Tiamat.  Tehom. 
the  Genesis  word  for  the  primeval  chaos,  and  tohu  and 


208  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

bohu,  the  Hebrew  "waste"  and  "void,"  are  fairly  clear 
analogies  to  all  this,  there  being,  no  doubt  whatever  about 
the  derivation  of  Tehom  from  Tiamat.  If  Genesis  says 
God  made  man  according  to  His  image,  and  formed  the 
human  body  out  of  earth,  Babylonian  theology  centuries 
before  was  familiar  with  the  same  ideas.  The  great 
Gilgamesh  epic  tells  us  that  Gilgamesh  was  created  in  the 
image  of  the  god  Anu,  and  formed  out  of  earth.  An- 
other creation  by  the  god  Ea  is  thus  described  on  the 
eleventh  tablet  of  the  same  poem : 

"Ea  in  his  wise  heart  formed  an  image ; 
He  created  Asu-su-na-mir". 

And  again,  we  are  informed  in  the  sixth  tablet  of  the 
creation-epic,  that  Marduk  created  man  by  mingling  his 
own  divine  blood  with  clay. 

The  story  of  the  fall  of  man  is  of  momentous  im- 
portance because  of  the  huge  structure  of  Christian  the- 
ology that  rests  upon  it.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  it,  too, 
no  less  than  almost  all  the  other  earlier  portions  of  Gene- 
sis, is  little  more  than  an  adoption  of  a  Babylonian  myth. 
Why,  indeed,  should  we  make  an  exception  of  this  par- 
ticular narrative,  inserted  as  it  is  in  the  midst  of  accounts 
which  Catholic  scholars  themselves  are  forced  to  admit 
have  their  foundation  in  Mesopotamian  mythology?  Ac- 
cording to  Genesis  the  first  man  was  forbidden  to  eat  of  a 
certain  tree  in  Eden  which  was  a  "tree  of  the  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil".  There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  for 
thinking  that  this  command  was  a  test  of  obedience.    God 


THE   OLD  TESTAMENT   IN    NEW    LIGHT  2CX) 

simply  did  not  wish  man  to  obtain  that  secret  of  His  own, 
the  mysterious  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  God  was 
jealous  of  man,  lest  man  become  a  god.  This  is  flatly 
stated  in  Genesis  iii  22  sq.,  when  God  said,  after  the  fate- 
ful fruit  had  been  eaten :  "Behold  the  man  has  become  as 
one  of  us,  to  know  good  and  evil ;  and  now,  lest  he  put 
forth  his  hand  and  take  also  of  the  tree  of  life,  and  eat 
and  live  forever,  therefore  the  Lord  God  sent  him  forth 
from  the  Garden  of  Eden,  to  till  the  ground  from  whence 
he  was  taken.  So  He  drove  out  the  man ;  and  He  placed 
at  the  East  of  the  garden  of  Eden  the  Cherubim,  and  the 
flame  of  a  sword  which  turned  every  way,  to  keep  the 
way  of  the  tree  of  life."  Whoever  does  not  see  in  this 
God's  jealousy  to  prevent  man  from  becoming  a  god,  by 
gaining  immortality ;  and  does  not  perceive  in  it  also  a 
poor  primitive  attempt  of  uncultivated  reason  to  answer 
the  question,  "Why  is  it  that  we  are  not,  like  the  gods, 
immortal  ?"  is  strangely  uninfluenced  by  the  results  of  the 
study  of  religious  origins.  The  whole  narration  is  con- 
spicuously Babylonian.  In  the  first  place,  Eden  is  a 
Babylonian  word.  Two  of  the  four  rivers  of  Eden  are, 
in  the  text  of  Genesis  itself:  "Hiddekel,  that  is,  which 
goeth  in  front  of  Assyria.  And  the  fourth  river  is  Eu- 
phrates." (ii.  14.)  No  less  Babylonian  are  the  ideas  tran- 
scribed in  our  form  of  the  story.  The  Babylonian  gods, 
too,  were  jealous  lest  man  "become  as  one  of  us".  They 
too  had  a  plant  whose  fruit  conferred  immortality.  They 
too  dealt  with  men  who  came  very  near  to  eating  of  this 
"tree  of  life",  but  failed,  and  were  reduced  to  the  common 


210  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

lot  of  suffering,  labor,  and  death.  When  the  mythical 
hero  Adapa  was  summoned  into  the  presence  of  the  great 
god  Anu,  Adapa  was  told  by  his  father,  the  benevolent 
Ea,  that  Anu  would  offer  him  "the  food  of  death",  and 
the  "water  of  death" ;  and  warned  him  to  refuse  them. 
But,  in  the  event,  Anu  was  pleased  with  Adapa,  and 
offered  him  the  "food  of  life",  and  the  "water  of  life". 
Poor  Adapa,  thinking  that,  as  his  father  had  admonished, 
this  food  and  water  were  unto  death,  would  not  eat  or 
drink,  and  so  lost  his  opportunity  of  becoming  immortal 
and  had  to  undergo  the  fate  of  all  mortality.  "Why  must 
we  die"?  is  the  problem  of  the  Adapa-myth,  as  of  the 
Eden-story.  The  problem  occurs  again  in  the  eleventh 
tablet  of  the  Gilgamesh-poem.  Gilgamesh  goes  to  Ut- 
napishtim,  the  divinized  man  who  was  saved  from  the 
deluge,  and  asks  him  how  he  had  managed  to  attain  the 
immortality  of  the  gods.  Gilgamesh  is  looking  for  an 
escape  from  death  and  an  agony  of  desire  underlies  his 
question. 

"Which  of  the  gods  allowed  you  to  enter  the  company 
[of  gods]  ?  *  *  *  In  my  bed-chamber  sits  death." 
Ut-napishtim  answers : 

"I  will  reveal  to  you,  Gilgamesh,  a  secret  word ; 
A  word  of  mystery  will  I  speak  to  you". 

"The  word  of  mystery",  is  to  the  effect  that  a  plant 
which  will  confer  immortality,  a  "tree  of  life",  in  the 
words  of  Genesis,  grows  beneath  the  waters.  Gilgamesh, 
at  once,  leaps  into  the  water  and  finds  the  plant.  In  joy 
he  cries  out: 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT   IN    NEW    LIGHT  211 

"This  is  a  renowned  plant. 

By  it  man  obtains  the  breath  of  life. 

I  will  take  it  back  to  Erech     .     .     .     \  will  eat  of  it. 

Its  name  is  'The  old  made  young', 

I  will  eat  it,  and  I  will  return  to  my  youth." 

But,  alas !  while  Gilgamesh  is  bathing,  a  serpent  crawls 
up  to  "the  plant  of  immortality"  which  had  been  left  on 
the  bank,  and  bears  it  away. 

"A  serpent  perceives  the  odor  of  the  plant, 
He  crawls  up,  and  takes  it  away ; 
And  going  away  leaves  an  evil  thing  [or  curse]." 

Gilgamesh,  on  discovering  his  loss,  begins  to  feel  the 
premonitions  of  decay  and  death. 

"Why  are  my  bones  fatigued? 
Why  is  the  blood  destroyed  in  my  heart  ?" 

Adapa  had  to  die  because  he  ate  not  of  the  "food  of 
life",  and  drank  not  of  the  "water  of  life."  Gilgamesh  had 
to  die  because  the  serpent  stole  his  plant,  whose  name  is 
"the  old  made  young".  And  the  primitive  Hebrew 
thinker,  speculating  on  the  same  problem  of  death,  based 
his  explanation  on  the  Babylonian  solution  which  had 
been  devised  many  centuries  before  him,  and  said  that 
our  mortal  limitations — labor  and  toil  in  the  sweat  of  our 
brows,  the  agony  of  women  in  childbirth,  and  at  last,  our 
returning  to  dust — are  due  to  God's  preventing  Adam 
from  eating  of  the  "tree  of  life"  in  Eden,  lest  he  "become 


212  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

as  one  of  us."  It  is  safe  indeed  to  say,  that  had  the 
Babylonian  originals  of  the  Genesis-legends  been  known 
to  early  Christianity,  our  doctrines  of  original  sin  and 
blood-redemption  would  wear  a  vastly  different  aspect, 
and  St.  Paul  would  never  have  introduced — for  Christ 
gives  the  Pauline  conception  not  a  syllable  of  approval — 
his  Rabbinical  theology  which  bases  the  primary  purpose 
of  Christ's  advent  and  death  upon  what  is  said  to  have 
happened  in  Eden. 

The  classic  Babylonian  story  of  Marduk's  cleaving  the 
monster  Tiamat  finds  more  than  one  echo  in  the  Bible. 
Says  Job:  "By  his  understanding  he  smiteth  through 
Rahab  .  .  .  His  hand  hath  pierced  the  swift  ser- 
pent" (xxvi  :i2-i3).  And  again :  "Behold  now  Behemoth 
...  his  strength  is  in  his  loins,  and  his  force  is  in  the 
muscles  of  his  belly.  He  waveth  his  tail  like  a  cedar. 
The  sinews  of  his  thighs  are  knit  together.  His  bones 
are  as  tubes  of  brass.  His  limbs  are  like  bars  of  iron. 
.  .  .  He  only  that  made  him  can  make  his  sword  to 
approach  unto  him."  (xI:i-5  sq.)  In  Isaiah  we  read: 
"Awake,  awake:  put  on  strength,  O  arm  of  the  Lord; 
awake  as  in  the  days  of  old,  the  generations  of  ancient 
times.  Art  thou  not  it  that  cut  Rahab  in  pieces,  that 
pierced  the  dragon" ?(li.  9  sq.)  And  in  the  last  book 
of  our  Scriptures,  the  dragon  that  was  cast  from  Heaven 
is  a  lineal  descendant  of  Tiamat. 

We  must  not  take  too  radical  a  view  of  these  and  many 
other  Babylonian  borrowings.  We  must  keep  ever  in 
mind  that  the  Hebrews  in  incorporating  into  their  religion 


THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   IN    NEW    LIGHT  213 

and  literature  so  many  elements  from  the  rich  theology 
of  the  older  people,  cleansed  them  from  the  gross  poly- 
theism in  which  they  were  originally  imbedded,  and 
made  them  vehicles  of  monotheistic  and  sometimes  of 
high  ethical  teaching.  Beyond  question,  the  monotheism 
of  the  prophets  is  the  noblest  expression  of  religious  truth 
outside  Christianity,  and  no  one  can  well  blame  us  for 
regarding  it  as  the  result  of  a  special  Providence  of  the 
Most  High.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  blind 
ourselves  to  the  fact  that  ethical  monotheism  was  reached 
in  Israel  only  after  a  slow  religious  evolution,  during 
which  many  a  myth  and  superstition  was  believed  and 
practiced,  and  was  thought  to  be  the  revelation  of  the 
Almighty.  Can  anyone  now  believe  that  Jehovah  was 
prevented  from  killing  Moses  only  because  Zipporah 
flung  the  bloody  foreskin  of  her  son  at  God's  feet?  (Ex. 
iv)  ;  that  Jehovah  would  not  let  Moses  see  His  face,  but 
only  his  back  parts?  (Ex.  xxxiii)  ;  that  two  sons  of  Aaron 
were  consumed  with  fire  because  they  offered  "strange 
incense"  to  Jehovah?  (Lev.  x)  ;  that  lepers  were  cleansed 
when  the  Jewish  priests  touched  with  oil  and  blood  the 
tip  of  their  right  ear,  the  thumb  of  their  right  hand,  and 
the  great  toe  of  their  right  foot?  (Lev.  xiv)  ;  that  the 
sins  of  the  people  were  forgiven  by  loading  a  scapegoat 
with  the  transgressions,  and  driving  him  forth?  (Lev. 
xiv)  ;  that  when  an  animal  was  killed,  its  blood,  unless 
offered  to  Jehovah,  was  imputed  to  the  killer?  (Lev. 
xvii)  ;  that  a  sin  with  a  betrothed  maid-slave  was  for- 
given by  butchering  a  ram?  (Lev.  xvii)  ;  that  God  for 


214  FAITH   AND  CRITICISM 

bade  men  to  look  upon  the  corpse  of  their  father  and 
mother?  (Num.  vi)  ;  that  the  Infinite  commanded  a  man 
to  be  murdered  who  was  caught  gathering  sticks  on  the 
Sabbath?  (Num.  xv)  ;  that  the  Creator  of  the  universe 
told  Moses  that  the  Israelites  must  put  fringes  on  their 
coats?  or  that  He  sanctioned  the  wild  superstition  of  the 
ordeal  as  told  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  Numbers? 

These,  and  many  other  similar  barbarities,  show  that 
Jewish  literature  and  religion  have  undergone  the  opera- 
tion of  universal  law — evolution,  growth,  from  lower  to 
higher,  from  superstition  to  spiritual  purity,  and,  above 
all,  for  this  is  the  fundamental  thing,  from  a  grosser  to  a 
nobler  idea  of  God.  Only  a  tribal,  paltry,  parochial  con- 
cept of  Deity  could  possibly  have  attributed  to  Him  the 
appalling  irreverences  and  puerile  nonsense  of  which 
there  are  so  many  instances  in  the  Pentateuch  and  in  the 
legal  books.  From  a  deity  who  walks  in  the  cool  of  the 
evening,  flings  stones  from  heaven  on  an  army  and  cuts 
to  pieces  a  monster  of  the  deep,  Israel  slowly  grew  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  God  of  righteousness  taught  by  the 
prophets,  and  the  God  of  love  announced  in  the  glad  tid- 
ings of  the  greatest  Prophet  of  Israel  and  the  world. 

The  idea  of  man  as  well  as  the  idea  of  God  was  of 
slow  development  among  this  Hebrew  people,  whose 
religion  we  have  been  taught  to  regard  as  a  creation, 
ex  abrupto,  by  the  Almighty.  The  true  immortality  of 
the  soul  was  unknown  to  the  early  Jews,  and  appears  in 
the  Bible  only  after  the  exile.  Sheol  was  the  lot  of 
all  souls,  good  and  bad.    Sheol,  as  was  precisely  the  case 


THE  OLD   TESTAMENT   IN    NEW    LIGHT  215 

in  Babylonia,  had  no  ethical  gradations  whatsoever,  no 
reward  for  virtue,  no  punishment  for  sin.  It  was  simply 
a  dark  dismal  cave  where  the  departed  spirits  possessed 
a  half-existence  as  in  a  world  of  ghosts  and  shadows,  a 
world  that  was  wholly  dismal  and  full  of  mournfulness. 
It  is  by  way  of  necessary  accord  with  this  conception 
that  the  older  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  contain  no 
reference  to  a  higher  human  destiny  in  another  world  or 
to  a  vindication  of  divine  goodness  and  justice  beyond 
the  grave.  God's  rewards  were  here  and  now,  and  con- 
sisted in  rich  herds,  large  families,  and  physical  well- 
being.  Earthly  misfortune,  sickness,  poverty  and  trouble 
were  signs  of  God's  anger,  and  proofs  that  sin  had  been 
committed.  Not  until  the  Jews  returned  to  Palestine 
under  Cyrus  do  they  exhibit  traces  of  understanding  any 
ethical  scheme  which  goes  beyond  the  scope  of  earthly 
existence.  And  in  the  opinion  of  a  great  majority  of 
scholars,  an  opinion  for  which  assuredly  there  is  a  most 
impressive  mass  of  evidence,  they  derived  this  higher 
and  nobler  belief  from  the  Persians  with  whom  they  had 
just  been  so  closely  associated.  Doubtless  in  the  course 
of  time  the  pure  teachings  of  prophetism  would  have 
produced  the  notion  of  true  immortality;  but  the  proba- 
bility which  is  all  but  a  certainty,  remains,  that  Judaism 
got  the  idea  from  Zoroastrianism,  which  had  an  exalted 
eschatology,  and  took  almost  a  Christian  view  of  the 
gravity  and  awfulness  of  the  judgment  which  follows 
death. 

Let  me  conclude   these  remarks   upon  the  enormous 


2l6  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

development  of  which  even  a  religion  and  a  literature, 
believed  to  be  divine,  are  susceptible,  with  a  few  words 
upon  the  manner  in  which  a  later  faith  can  be  read  back 
into  earlier  history  and  based  upon  a  great  man  who, 
in  point  of  fact,  had,  and  could  have  had  no  possible  con- 
nection with  it. 

We  have  a  life  of  King  David  in  the  second  book  of 
Samuel,  written  not  long  after  David's  time,  and  another 
in  the  second  book  of  Chronicles  composed  after  the 
exile.  In  the  narration  as  Samuel  gives  it,  we  are  fa- 
vored with  no  indications  of  the  ceremonial  prescrip- 
tions of  the  Levitical  law,  and  with  no  mention  of  the 
Levites,  for  the  excellent  reason  that  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  then  existed.  But  the  author  of  post-exilic 
2  Chronicles,  wishing  to  impress  upon  us  the  Mosaic 
origin  of  the  full  temple-service,  makes  it  appear  that 
the  entire  system  of  Levitical  ritual  was  known  to  the 
great  king,  and  that  solicitude  for  it  was  about  the  most 
prominent  characteristic  of  his  life.  Thus  the  earlier 
book  tells  us  that  when  David  removed  the  ark  from  the 
house  of  Aminadab,  he  provided  for  it  an  escort  of  thirty 
thousand  picked  men  of  Israel.  The  later  narration, 
correcting  this  detail  under  theological  preoccupation, 
would  have  us  believe  that  David  sent  Levites  to  bear 
the  ark,  for,  of  course,  "none  ought  to  carry  the  ark  of 
God  but  the  Levites."  Again  Chronicles  sets  forth  that 
David  gathered  together  thirty-eight  thousand  Levites 
and  organized  them  into  regular  service-courses,  a  point 
on  which,  by  the  necessity  of  the  case,  the  more  authentic 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT   IN    NEW    LIGHT  217 

biography  is  silent.  Not  to  leave  the  impression,  which 
would  be  somewhat  of  a  scandal  to  an  orthodoxy  which 
was  endeavoring  to  push  back  its  origins  to  Moses,  that 
David  was  ignorant  even  of  the  lower  details  of  the 
ritual,  Chronicles  pictures  the  great  hero  of  Israel  as 
appointing  the  very  musicians  and  doorkeepers  of  Yah- 
weh's  house.  And  whereas  2  Samuel  puts  into  dying 
David's  mouth  an  address  to  his  son  Solomon  which 
says  nothing  of  temple  worship,  but  contains  counsels 
far  less  edifying,  Chronicles  would  have  it  appear  that 
the  aged  sovereign's  valedictory  was  wholly  taken  up 
with  minute  directions  for  the  new  temple,  and  meticu- 
lous advice  respecting  its  porch,  upper  room,  inner  cham- 
ber, mercy-seat,  vessels,  tables,  lamps  and  candlesticks. 
Thus  it  is  everywhere  in  the  history  of  religions. 
Theologies  always  grow  beyond  the  prevision  of  the 
founders  of  them ;  but  theologians  never  like  to  admit 
that  the  developments  of  religion  were  not  foreseen  and 
provided  for  by  the  original  father  or  fathers  of  the  faith. 
Hence  the  effort  to  throw  back  into  the  early  scripture 
or  upon  the  founder  of  a  religion,  the  growths  of  later 
times.  On  the  one  hand,  a  religion  that  lives  must  ex- 
pand ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  veneration  given  the 
founder  .requires  that  his  authority  be  the  immediate 
foundation  of  every  article  of  the  creed.  This  is  too 
obvious  and  elementary  to  call  for  further  elucidation. 
The  preceding  comparison  of  2  Samuel  and  2  Chronicles 
shows  it  clearly  enough. 


CHAPTER  III 

Are  the  Gospels  Merely  History? 

S~*  HRIST  and  His  message  were  preached  as  a  religion 
^-^  before  they  were  written  about  as  a  history.  The 
apostles  announced  the  kingdom  of  God,  described  the 
conditions  for  entering  it,  and  proved  that  Christ  was 
Messiah.  Secondly,  though  it  was  a  point  of  capital  im- 
portance, they  endeavored  to  show  that  Christ's  ignomin- 
ious death  was  no  obstacle  to  His  Messiahship,  since  it  was 
an  essential  part  of  the  plan  of  God,  and  since  the  shame 
of  Calvary  and  the  gloom  of  the  grave  were  glorified  by 
the  triumph  of  the  resurrection.  With  the  earthly  life 
of  our  Lord  the  public  preaching  of  the  apostles  was 
concerned  hardly  at  all.  We  have  a  fairly  full  statement 
of  St.  Paul's  message,  yet  we  look  in  vain  either  in  Acts 
or  in  his  epistles  for  any  picture  of  Christ's  life  among 
men,  or  any  notable  quotations  of  the  Master's  words. 
"Accept  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  of  God.  We  declare  to 
you  that  He  rose  from  the  dead.  Be  baptized  in  His 
name.  Prepare  by  righteousness  for  his  return."  That 
in  substance  was  the  evangel  of  the  Twelve.  To  declare 
in  detail  what  Christ  did  in  Galilee  and  what  in  Judea, 
what  journeys  He  took,  what  words  He  spoke,  what 
miracles  He  did,  what  controversies  He  engaged  in,  and 
what  colloquies  He  held  with  His  apostles,  was  no  part 

218 


ARE  THE   GOSPELS    MERELY   HISTORY  2IO, 

at  all  of  the  first  Christian  preaching.  All  those  matters 
pertain  to  biography,  and  Christianity  began  with  an 
announcement  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  its  Messianic 
King. 

But  the  need  of  some  sort  of  biography  of  the  Lord 
was  soon  felt,  and  this  for  more  than  one  reason.  Our 
Gospels  came  into  being  not  only  in  response  to  the 
natural  wish  of  the  early  believers  to  possess  a  life  of 
their  Master;  but  also  out  of  the  exigencies  of  instruc- 
tion and  controversy.  There  had  to  be  for  the  edifica- 
tion and  confirmation  of  converts,  detailed  proofs  of  the 
heavenly  dignity  of  Christ,  of  His  wonderful  power  and 
of  His  God-appointed  Messiahship.  And  furthermore, 
there  had  to  be  a  permanent  arsenal  of  argument  against 
the  constant  attacks  of  the  Jews.  So,  after  many  pre- 
liminary and  partial  attempts  at  Gospel-making,  referred 
to  in  Luke's  prologue,  appeared  at  last  during  a  period 
from  forty  to  seventy  years  after  Christ's  death,  the 
fourfold  biography  of  the  Christian  canon.  The  Gos- 
pels are  biographies  indeed,  and  historical  documents, 
but  they  are  colored  by  the  preoccupation  of  their  authors 
to  edify,  to  confirm  the  faith,  and  to  refute  argument. 
That  they  should  disclose  this  preoccupation  is  not  only 
natural  but  inevitable.  It  is  a  simple  impossibility  that 
the  evangelists,  writing  so  long  after  the  events  they 
describe,  should  not  have  been  in  some  measure  influenced 
by  the  vicissitudes  and  controversies  of  the  intervening 
time.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  in  that  age,  in  the 
prevailing  circumstances,   and   in   the   temper  of  mind 


220  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

then  universal,  they  should  have  written  their  sketches 
of  Jesus,  as  a  critic  trained  in  the  methods  and  spirit  of 
modern  research  writes  a  history,  dispassionately  exam- 
ining documents,  relentlessly  seeking  for  sources,  and 
incessantly  vigilant  against  vouching  for  statements  not 
proved  up  to  the  hilt.  That  sort  of  historian  had  not 
then  been  born,  and  those  ideals  of  history-writing  had 
no  place  in  the  mental  temperament  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians. Luke  indeed  tells  us  that  he  had  traced  "the 
course  of  all  things  accurately  from  the  first" ;  but  it 
would  be  only  wasting  time  to  prove  that  we  must  not 
infer  from  this  that  Luke  made  use  of  the  methods  of 
the  critical  historian.  He  did  not  make  use  of  them 
because  he  did  not  know  them. 

It  should  not  then  astonish  us  to  find  reflected  in  the 
Gospels  some  results  of  the  forty  to  seventy  years  of 
Christian  development  which  had  taken  place  before  they 
were  composed.  We  should  think  it  not  at  all  extraordi- 
nary if  they  reveal,  upon  close  examination,  a  consider- 
able growth  in  doctrine,  an  idealization  of  the  original 
facts,  an  apologetic  bias,  and  even  some  results  of  Chris- 
tian imagination,  in  the  shape  of  legend.  The  Gospels 
would  not  be  products  of  their  time,  they  would  be 
psychologically  inexplicable  if  they  had  not  these  fea- 
tures. Let  it  be  enough  for  us  to  know  that  beneath 
inevitable  imperfections,  a  divine  message  and  a  divine 
Character  are  clearly  enough  perceptible;  and  that  in 
these  we  may  find  salvation. 

Let  me  instance,  as  a  first  indication  of  that  evolution 


ARE  THE   GOSPELS   MERELY   HISTORY  221 

of  which  the  Gospels  themselves  are  witness,  the  differ- 
ence between  the  fourth  gospel  and  the  first  three,  a 
difference  which  makes  it  necessary  for  modern  students 
to  examine  the  Synoptics  apart,  since  it  is  impossible 
to  reconcile  them  with  the  fourth.  For  brevity  I  will 
speak  of  the  Synoptics  as  S.  and  the  fourth  Gospel  as  J. 
They  differ,  then,  in  the. following  points: 

i.  S.  describes  the  ministry  of  Jesus  as  wholly  carried 
on  in  Galilee  (except  for  a  visit  to  Decapolis,  and  the 
Perean  mission  given  in  Luke)  up  to  the  time  of  the 
journey  to  Judea,  which  ended  in  the  crucifixion.  J.  as- 
signs the  greater  part  of  the  public  ministry  to  Judea  and 
its  neighborhood. 

2.  J.  alone  mentions  several  persons  of  so  great  an 
importance  that,  on  the  supposition  of  their  being  actual 
historical  characters,  it  is  inconceivable  that  none  of  the 
earlier  Gospels  should  have  said  one  word  about  them. 
These  persons  are  Nathaniel,  Nicodemus  and  Lazarus. 

3.  J.  has  no  narrative  of  Peter's  confession  at  Csesarea 
Philippi,  of  Christ's  baptism,  transfiguration,  temptation, 
agony  in  the  garden,  or  desolation  of  soul  on  the  cross. 

4.  The  synagogue  scenes  so  frequent  in  S.  have  dis- 
appeared (except  in  vi  59)  in  J. 

5.  S.  gives  a  highly  conspicuous  place  in  Christ's 
teaching  to  eschatological  ideas — the  catastrophe  of  the 
world's  end,  and  the  final  judgment.  J.  has  nothing  of 
this. 

6.  S.  has  twenty  miracles,  J.  seven,  and  these  seven 
very  peculiarly  treated.     Every  one  of  them  is  wrought 


222  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

in  order  to  bring  out  some  new  claim  of  Christ,  some 
fresh  proof  of  His  divine  Person  and  mission.  This  is 
a  miracle-scheme  which  does  not  fit  in  at  all  with  tht 
miracle-narratives  of  S.,  as  a  few  minutes'  comparative 
study  will  show.  Moreover,  the  common,  ever-recur- 
ring miracles  in  S.  are  worked  upon  those  possessed  of 
devils.  J.  has  no  possession-cases.  Furthermore,  there 
appears  in  J.  a  disposition  to  augment  the  miracle  in  order 
that  Christ's  easy  exercise  of  stupendous  power  may 
shine  forth  most  strikingly.  Thus,  while  in  S.  Christ 
raises  Jairus'  daughter  (though  according  to  the  text 
itself  we  cannot  say  that  the  girl  was  really  dead)  and 
the  widow's  son,  these  miracles  took  place  very  soon 
after  death.  The  widow's  son,  according  to  Oriental 
custom,  may  have  been  carried  out  to  burial  on  the  very 
day  of  his  death.  But  Lazarus  is  raised,  as  told  in  J., 
when  he  had  been  four  days  dead.  The  peculiar  em- 
phasis of  the  "four  days"  lies  in  this,  that  it  was  a 
Jewish  belief  that  the  soul  hovers  near  the  body  for  three 
days.  Again,  while  our  Lord  heals  the  blind  in  S.,  J. 
makes  Him  give  sight  to  one  "born  blind".  Finally,  this 
tendency  of  J.  to  intensify  miracles  is  seen  in  the  amaz- 
ing instance  at  Cana,  when  water  was  turned  to  wine. 
Of  all  the  Gospel  miracles  none  causes  more  offense  to 
the  spiritual  sense  than  this.  For  the  trivial  reason  that 
the  wine  had  failed,  which  could  have  happened  only 
after  considerable  conviviality,  and  with  no  enquiry  as 
to  whether  the  small  supply  that  would  still  be  needed 
might  not  have  been  easily  procured,  the  Sort  of  God 


ARE  THE   GOSPELS   MERELY    HISTORY  22$ 

performs  the  overwhelming  miracle  of  turning  several 
great  jugs  of  water  into  wine !  It  requires  surely  no 
expert  knowledge  of  higher  criticism,  but  only  a  reverent 
idea  of  God,  to  perceive  that  this  narrative  could  have 
arisen  only  from  that  lust  for  miracle  which  primitive 
peoples  always  display,  and  from  an  apologetic  purpose 
of  throwing  into  the  strongest  possible  belief  the  wonder- 
working power  of  Christ. 

7.  S.  furnishes  us  with  a  fairly  normal  view  of  our 
Lord's  developing  career  and  work.  He  takes  up  the 
Baptist  preaching  of  this  kingdom,  goes  through  his 
native  Galilee  meeting  with  success,  arousing  hostility, 
working  miracles  and  instructing  disciples.  While  the 
devils  recognize  Him  from  the  first  as  Messiah,  even  the 
apostles  do  not,  and  it  is  not  until  the  great  incident  at 
Caesarea  Philippi  that  they  answer  aright  the  question : 
Who  do  you  say  that  I  am?  Beneath  all  this  we  can  dis- 
cern a  natural  progression  in  the  work  and  conscious- 
ness of  Christ,  from  the  day  in  which,  along  with  other 
hearers  of  the  Baptist,  he  went  down  into  the  Jordan  to 
be  baptized,  to  the  day  when,  having  apparently  grown 
into  a  profound  conviction  that  He  was  God's  mes- 
senger to  inaugurate  the  Messianic  era,  He  accepted 
the  title  of  the  Expected  of  Israel.  But  in  J.  there  is  no 
normal  development  at  all  in  Christ's  career.  The  Bap- 
tist hails  Him  as  Lamb  of  God,  at  the  first  sight  of  Him. 
Andrew  sees  in  Him  the  Messiah  on  a  similarly  slight 
acquaintance,  and  before  Christ  has  truly  begun  His 
ministry;  and  the   Messiahship  which   in   S.  the   Lord 


224  FAITH   AND  CRITICISM 

keeps  so  carefully  concealed,  He  reveals  early  in  His 
public  life  to  a  peasant-woman  of  Samaria. 

8.  Above  all  other  differences,  the  weightiest  and 
least  possible  to  reconcile  are  those  presented  by  Christ's 
message  and  the  mode  of  uttering  it.  In  S.  parables  are 
constant.  In  J.  they  are  almost  entirely  missing.  In  S. 
the  great  words  and  ideas  on  which  turns  practically  the 
whole  preaching  theme  of  Jesus  are  "repent",  "re- 
pentance"; and  "kingdom  of  God"  (Heaven).  This  last 
phrase  occurs  eighty  times  in  S. ;  twice  in  J.  S.  repre- 
sents the  Lord  as  uttering  short,  pithy,  gnomic  sayings, 
and  artless  exhortations  to  spiritual  purity,  love  of  God 
and  man,  mercy,  long-suffering  and  trust  in  the  heavenly 
Father.  J.  gives  us  instead,  elaborate  long  speeches,  the 
themes  of  which  are  frequently  high  abstractions,  such 
as  "Life",  "Light",  "Truth",  "Death",  "Darkness". 
"Faith"  in  S.  means  trust  in  God.  "Faith"  in  J.  means 
belief  in  the  God-sent  Christ;  and  in  violent  contradic- 
tion to  S.,  this  belief-faith  is  based  upon  the  "signs" 
which  Jesus  works  primarily  to  produce  it.  A  com- 
parative study  of  the  Lord's  message  in  S.  and  in  J. 
convinces  one  that  it  is  a  psychological  impossibility  that 
the  Christ  of  the  Snyoptics  could  have  spoken  the  dis- 
courses of  the  fourth  Gospel. 

A  closer  study  of  J.  will  also  make  it  reasonably  plain 
that  this  whole  gospel  is  constructed  not  as  an  historical 
life  of  Christ,  but  as  a  proof  that  Jesus  is  the  Logos  of 
God.  From  the  very  first  sentence  He  is  Logos,  and  to 
the  last  verse  he  moves  forward  as  a  divinity,  to  whom 


ARE  THE   GOSPELS    MERELY   HISTORY  225 

the  development  and  the  human  touches  of  the  Synoptics 
are  utterly  inapplicable. 

Since  the  Lord  never  called  Himself  Logos,  the 
'"Word"  of  God,  we  may  enquire  where  the  author  of 
the  fourth  Gospel  got  the  word  and  the  idea.  There 
can  be  only  one  reasonable  answer.  He  got  it  from 
Greek  philosophy,  especially  as  represented  in  Philo. 
Plato  had  conceived  that  there  exists  a  world  of  pure 
ideas  which  are  the  archetypes  of  earthly  existence.  The 
Stoics  applied  the  very  term  Logos  to  the  Reason  that 
rules  the  world.  Philo,  believing  that  the  eternal  Abso- 
lute could  not  directly  work  on  so  low  an  element  as  our 
world,  imagined  as  media  through  which  He  rules  it,  a 
set  of  "energies"  or  "ideas",  at  the  head  of  which  is 
Logos.  The  Philonic  Logos  is  a  combination  of  the  late- 
Jewish  "Wisdom",  and  the  Stoic  "Reason-working-in- 
the-world".  Philo  speaks  of  this  Logos  in  extraordinary 
terms.  He  calls  it  the  oldest  or  first-born  Son  of  God ; 
the  oldest  angel;  the  Beginning;  the  Word  or  Name  of 
God;  the  Archetype  of  creation;  the  second  God,  DEU- 
TEROS  THEOS;  the  Vehicle  of  revelation;  Ambassa- 
dor ;  Representative ;  High  Priest ;  Intercessor ;  Advo- 
cate; Mediator.  He  says  that  Logos  is  the  principle  of 
all  that  is  good  in  men ;  that  only  as  Logos  dwells  in 
the  soul  may  we  overcome  evil  and  be  saved.  Logos  is 
the  soul's  heavenly  bread  or  manna ;  the  soul's  wine  and 
drink;  the  soul's  teacher  and  physician.  Wisdom  and 
Logos  come  into  the  soul  as  into  a  temple  of  God. 
Logos  is  "neither  unbegotten  as  God  is,  nor  begotten  as 


226  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

we  are.  Logos  stands  between  contradictories,  on  the 
one  hand  as  an  assurance  to  the  Creator  that  the  race 
of  men  shall  never  wholly  fall  away;  and  on  the  other 
as  a  hope  unto  men  that  the  gracious  God  shall  never 
allow  His  work  to  be  destroyed." 

I  am  far  from  saying  so  unscholarly  a  thing  as  that 
there  are  no  differences  between  the  Logos  of  Philo 
and  the  Logos  of  the  fourth  Gospel.  I  simply  main- 
tain that  since  the  Gospel  is  built  about  a  Philonic  theme 
and  since  it  expressly  states  its  apologetic  purpose  in  the 
words :  "These  are  written  that  ye  may  believe  that 
Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,"  we  cannot  take  it 
au  pied  de  la  lettre  as  a  history  of  Jesus,  but  must  admit 
that  it  represents  a  later  stage  of  Christianity  than  the 
Christianity  of  Mark,  and  mingles  with  the  record  of  our 
Lord's  life  both  a  quasi-philosophical  apologetic,  and 
ideas  which  were  foreign  to  the  Christ  of  history.  The 
sublimity  of  this  Gospel,  and  its  high  usefulness  for  the 
spiritual  and  mystical  life,  even  its  truthfulness  in  giving 
expression  to  the  loftier  meaning  of  the  Person  and  mis- 
sion of  Jesus,  every  Christian  will  gladly  and  gratefully 
acknowledge.  It  is  a  priceless  book.  But  not  without 
serious  reserve  can  we  take  it  as  a  transcript  of  the 
words  and  deeds  of  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Theologian  in  the  Synoptics 

f~*  OMING  to  the  Synoptics,  we  are  obliged  to  admit 
^■^  that  here  too  we  find  evidences  that  apologetic,  con- 
troversy, and  devout  legend  have  overlaid  the  history  of 
Jesus,  and  that  we  must  in  consequence  employ  our  best 
powers  of  critical  scrutiny  to  discern  the  genuine  message 
and  the  true  personality  of  our  Lord.  Mark  is  the  earliest 
of  our  Gospels — of  this  there  is  no  longer  doubt  among 
students  of  Christian  origins — and,  by  comparing  certain 
remarkable  test-passages  of  this  Gospel  with  the  parallel 
texts  of  the  later  Matthew  and  Luke,  we  can  hardly  fail  to 
see  that  apologetic  interests  have  frequently  modified 
Mark's  more  primitive  narrations.  Matthew  and  Luke, 
it  must  be  remembered,  knew  and  used  Mark.  No  po- 
sition of  critical  scholarship  is  more  abundantly  proved 
than  this. 

i.  Mk.  i.  32,  "they  brought  all  that  were  sick  and 
He  healed  many" ;  Matt.  viii.  16  changes  the  less  credit- 
able "many"  to  "all" ;  Lk.  iv.  40  to  "everyone". 

2.  Mk.  iv.  36  "and  other  boats  were  with  him".  The 
parallels  in  Matt,  and  Lk.  omit  this  phrase ;  for  how  could 
those  other  boats  have  weathered  the  storm  when  the 
apostles'  boat  was  saved  only  by  the  miracle  of  stilling  the 
tempest  ? 

227 


228  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

3.  Mk.  vi.  5.  "He  could  do  no  mighty  work  there, 
etc. ;  Matt.  xiii.  58,  "He  did  not  many  mighty  works  there. 

4.  Mk.  vii.  32.  sq.  describes  Christ  healing  the  man 
who  was  deaf  and  had  an  impediment  in  his  speech,  by 
using  spittle  and  groaning.  Matt.,  who  follows  Mk.  im- 
mediately before  and  immediately  after,  leaves  out  this 
miracle,  presumably  because  it  implies  effort  on  the  part 
of  Christ. 

5.  Mk.  vii.  22.  again  tells  of  Christ  curing  the  blind 
man  of  Bethsaida,  as  bringing  him  out  of  the  village, 
spitting  in  his  eyes  and  asking  him  if  he  saw.  The  man 
said  he  beheld  men  as  trees  walking.  Again  Christ  laid 
hands  on  the  man's  eyes,  and  "he  looked  steadfastly  and 
was  restored."  Matt.,  who  once  more  is  one  with  Mk., 
both  just  before  and  just  after  this  narration,  says  noth- 
ing of  the  miracle,  doubtless  for  the  same  reason  as  be- 
fore. 

6.  Mk.  xi.  20.  narrates  that  the  fig-tree  that  had  been 
cursed  was  found  withered  the  next  morning.  Matt.,  for 
obvious  reason^,  says  it  was  withered  immediately. 

7.  Mk.  i.  12.  "The  Spirit  driveth  him  forth", 
ck/SoXXu,  Matt,  and  Lk.,  with  a  more  developed  Christ- 
ology,  thought  this  an  indignity  and  softened  the  verb 
into  "was  led  by  the  Spirit",  and  "was  led  in  the  spirit". 

8.  Mk.  iii.  5.  "When  He  had  looked  round  about  on 
them  with  anger";  Matt,  and  Lk.  make  no  mention  of 
anger,  which,  evidently,  they  thought  unworthy  of  Christ, 
although  Lk.,  a  clear  proof  that  Mk.'s  text  lay  before 
him,   uses   the    same   participle   as   Mark,  TreptjSXe^a/Aevos. 


THE  SYNOPTICS  229 

9.  Mk.  iii.  21.  narrates  the  extraordinary  incident  of 
Christ's  friends  seeking  to  lay  hold  of  him,  thinking  that 
He  was  mad;  Matt,  and  Lk.,  being  further  from  the 
facts,  but  nearer  to  theology,  omit  so  discreditable  a  hap- 
pening. 

10.  Mk.  vi.  3.  "Is  not  this  the  carpenter?"  Lk.  leaves 
out  the  hardly  favorable  question  altogether;  Matt, 
softens  it  into  "Is  not  this  the  carpenter's  son?" 

11.  Mk.  vi.  48.  describing  Christ  walking  on  the  water 
toward  His  disciples,  says:  "And  He  would  have  passed 
by  them";  Matt,  and  Lk.  give  the  incident  without  this 
phrase,  which  might  imply  that  Christ  was  unwilling  to 
help  the  disciples. 

12.  Mk.  x.  14,  uses  the  very  harsh  word  ^yavaKi-ijo-ev, 
"He  was  moved  with  indignation,"  to  describe  our  Lord's 
feeling  against  the  disciples  who  were  pushing  back  the 
children ;  Matt,  and  Lk.,  in  the  interest  of  edification,  say 
nothing  of  Christ's  anger. 

13.  Mk.  xi.  13.  says  that  Christ,  being  hungry,  ap- 
proached a  fig-tree  "if  haply  He  might  find  anything 
thereon" ;  but  there  was  no  fruit,  because  in  Mk.'s  words, 
"it  was  not  the  season  for  figs".  These  last  words  the 
exigencies  of  theology  force  Matt,  and  Lk.  to  omit,  as 
implying  ignorance  in  Christ.  The  cursing,  of  this  fig- 
tree,  let  me  remark,  is  an  impossibility.  Christ  was  not 
the  sport  of  puerile  vindictiveness. 

14.  Mk.  x.  35.  tells  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee,  James  and 
John,  coming  to  our  Lord  to  ask  that  when  He  comes 
in  glory  one  may  sit  on  His  right  hand  and  one  on  the 


23O  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

left.  Matt.,  considering  this  ambition  unworthy  of 
apostles,  puts  the  request  into  the  mouth  of  the  mother 
of  the  brothers.  But,  by  an  oversight,  he  thus  resumes 
copying  Mark  in  the  answer  made  by  Christ:  "Ye  know 
not  what  ye  ask",  words  which  show  very  clearly  that 
the  petition  was  put  by  the  apostles  and  that  the  Lord's 
reply  was  addressed  to  them. 

To  help  such  as  may  wish  to  study  these  parallels,  I 
will  give  here  in  the  order  in  which  they  have  just  been 
set  forth,  the  references  to  Mk.,  and  the  corresponding 
altered  texts  in  Matt,  and  Lk. 

1.  Mk.  i.  32;  Matt.  viii.  16;  Lk.  iv.  40. 

2.  Mk.  iv.  36;  Matt.  viii.  23,  24;  Lk.  viii.  23  sq. 

3.  Mk.  vi.  5  ;  Matt.  xiii.  58. 

4.  Mk.  vii.  32 ;  omitted  in  Matt.  xv. 

5.  Mk.  viii.  22 ;  omitted  in  Matt.  xvi. 

6.  Mk.  xi.  20;  Matt.  xxi.  20. 

7.  Mk.  i.  12 ;  Matt.  iv.  1 ;  Lk.  iv.  I. 

8.  Mk.  iii.  5  ;  Matt.  xii.  9  sq. ;  Lk.  vi.  10. 

9.  Mk.  iii.  21  ;  omitted  in  Matt.  xii.  and  Lk.  xi. 

10.  Mk.  vi.  3 ;  Matt.  xiii.  55. 

11.  Mk.  vi.  48;  the  unpleasant  phrase  omitted  in  xiv. 
25,  26. 

12.  Mk.  v.  14;  Matt.  xix.  13;  Lk.  xviii.  15,  16. 

13.  Mk.  xi.  13;  Matt.  xxi.  19. 

14.  Mk.  x.  35 ;  Matt.  xx.  20. 

Surely  one  is  justified  in  saying  that  it  would  be  a 
dull  mind  that  did  not  see  in  these  parallel  texts,  evidences 
of  a  later  hand  going  over  the  earlier  narration  in  the 


THE  SYNOPTICS  23 1 

interest  of  Christian  apologetics.  And  once  we  perceive 
this,  can  we  be  blamed  for  using  our  best  powers  of 
critical  investigation  to  penetrate  beneath  these  much  to 
be  suspected  modifications,  in  order  to  arrive  at  the 
primitive  and  authentic  history  of  Jesus  as  He  was? 
Interesting  as  it  is  to  trace  the  growing  Christology  of 
the  first,  second  and  third  generations  after  Christ,  the 
first  necessity,  both  for  our  intellect  and  our  faith,  is  to 
go  back  of  doctrinal  development,  and  stand  as  near  as 
possible  to  the  Lord  and  Teacher  of  our  souls.  This  is 
not  an  easy  task,  for  the  apologetic  and  theological  tend- 
ency of  even  the  Synoptics  is  far  greater  than  I  have 
yet  indicated.  Until,  however,  we  adequately  appre- 
ciate this  tendency,  and  bring  ourselves  to  see  how  far  it 
extended,  there  is  a  cloud  between  us  and  the  real  Christ, 
and  there  is  a  danger  that  we  shall  misapprehend  some 
of  the  essential  features  of  His  Person  and  purpose. 

The  genealogies  given  in  the  first  and  third  Gospels 
are  a  striking  proof  that  our  canonical  biographies  of 
Jesus  are  not  mere  history,  but  argumentative  and  theo- 
logically colored  history.  As  a  fervent  faith  fastened 
upon  the  Person  of  the  Lord,  it  was  moved  by  the  im- 
pulse behind  all  faiths,  to  exalt  its  Founder,  to  crown 
Him  with  all  human  prestige,  and  all  divine  glory,  and 
set  Him,  so  to  speak,  in  the  forefront  of  men,  and  on  the 
right  hand  of  God.  Although  Christ  never  claims  descent 
from  David,  and  in  the  sole  passage  which  refers  to  the 
matter  (Mk.  xii.  35 ;  Matt.  xxii.  41 ;  Lk.  xx.  41)  seems  to 
argue  that  it  is  not  necessary  that  Messiah  should  be  of 


232  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

the  great  king's  line,  still  it  was  an  ineradicable  conviction 
of  the  Jews  that  Messiah  should  be  of  Davidic  stock,  and 
hence  of  Davidic  stock  the  genealogies  make  Him.  These 
genealogies  must  be  considered  unfortunate,  for  not  only 
are  they  irreconcilable  one  with  another,  but,  by  giving 
Joseph's  descent  instead  of  Mary's,  they  are  a  formid- 
able argument  against  the  virgin-birth.  For  what  would 
it  avail  to  Christ,  that  Joseph  was  of  royal  lineage,  if 
between  Christ  and  Joseph  there  was  only  a  purely 
legal  and  external  relationship  and  no  bond  of  blood? 
There  is  reason  indeed  for  thinking  that  the  genealogies 
which,  from  the  nature  of  the  case  must  be  a  very  early 
composition,  originally  contradicted  the  virgin-birth.  In 
one  of  the  most  ancient  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  existence,  the  Syriac  Sinaitic,  discovered  a  few 
years  ago,  the  genealogy  ends  thus :  "Jacob  begot 
Joseph ;  Joseph  to  whom  was  espoused  the  Virgin  Mary, 
begot  Jesus  who  is  called  the  Christ".  Some  of  the  old- 
est manuscripts  of  the  pre-Vulgate  Latin  Testament 
contain  the  bizarre  reading:  "The  Virgin  Mary  begot 
Jesus",  which  certainly  looks  like  a  later  modification 
of  a  primitive  text  that  resembled  the  disturbing  one  of 
the  Syriac  Sinaitic.  In  any  event  Luke's  list  rests  upon 
the  naive  idea  that  the  Old  Testament  genealogies  quite 
span  the  entire  history  of  mankind.  Had  our  present 
knowledge  of  the  antiquity  of  the  human  race  been 
possessed  by  the  first  generation  of  Christians,  a 
genealogy  carrying  back  Christ's  ancestry  to  the  first 
man  would  never  have  been  written.    It  is  only  too  plain 


THE  SYNOPTICS  233 

that  the  very  beginning  of  Matthew's  Gospel  and  the 
corresponding  section  of  Luke  are  theological  apologetic 
and  not  history. 

The  entire  Gospel  indeed  that  goes  under  the  name  of 
Matthew  is  preoccupied  with  the  apologetic  purpose  of 
showing  how  perfectly  Old  Testament  prophecy  is  ful- 
filled in  Christ.  The  birth  in  Bethlehem,  the  flight  into 
Egypt,  the  dwelling  in  Nazareth,  Christ's  power  over 
disease,  His  entry  into  Jerusalem,  His  arrest,  and  several 
other  incidents  are  "that  it  might  be  fulfilled".  And 
beyond  question  certain  of  these  alleged  prophecies  have 
no  proper  reference  to  our  Lord  at  all,  those  for  instance 
that  refer  to  the  Egyptian  sojourn  and  the  dwelling  in 
Nazareth.  In  one  case  Matthew,  to  designate  the  un- 
known author  of  this  Gospel  by  the  traditional  name,  in 
his  straining  after  prophecy-fulfillment  is  led  into  an 
error  which,  did  it  occur  in  a  profane  book,  we  should 
be  permitted  to  call  ludicrous.  Mark,  Luke  and  John 
describe  our  Lord  as  entering  Jerusalem  on  Palm  Sun- 
day, riding  upon  a  colt.  Matthew  more  suo,  looks  in  this 
simple  incident  for  a  "that  it  might  be  fulfilled",  and 
hits  upon  the  following  text  of  Zachary:  "Behold  thy 
King  cometh  unto  thee,  meek  and  riding  upon  an  ass ; 
and  upon  a  colt,  the  foal  of  an  ass".  Obviously  the 
prophetic  text  means  not  two  animals  but  only  one.  The 
reduplication  is  quite  after  the  manner  of  the  Hebraic 
Strophe-form.  Matthew,  however,  interprets  it  ad 
literam,  and  conforms  his  narration  to  this  erroneous 
notion,  with  the  grotesque  result  that  he  makes  our  Lord 


234  FAITH   AND  CRITICISM 

enter  the  city  riding  upon  two  animals.  "And  the 
disciples  went,  and  did  even  as  Jesus  appointed  them, 
and  brought  the  ass  and  the  colt,  and  put  on  them  their 
garments;  and  He  sat  thereon".     (Matt.  xxi.  5-7.) 

Matthew  it  is,  and  he  alone,  who  gives  us  the  famous 
text :  "Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build 
my  Church",  etc.  We  have  very  weighty  reasons  for 
suspecting  that  these  words  were  never  spoken  by  our 
Lord.  So  tremendous  is  the  import  of  this  text,  in  direct 
connection  as  it  is  with  one  of  the  most  momentous 
incidents  in  Christ's  career — His  first  authentic  outspoken 
claim  to  Messiahship  in  presence  of  the  apostles — that 
it  is  hard  indeed  to  understand  why  Mark  and  Luke,  who 
also  describe  the  great  scene  at  Caesarea  Philippi,  give 
no  suggestion  of  it  whatever.  Mark's  account  is :  "He 
asked  his  disciples  saying  unto  them :  Who  do  men  say 
that  I  am  ?  And  they  told  him  saying,  John  the  Baptist ; 
and  others  Elijah  ;  but  others,  one  of  the  prophets.  And 
He  asked  them:  But  who  say  ye  that  I  am?  Peter 
answereth  and  saith  unto  Him :  Thou  art  the  Christ. 
And  He  charged  them  that  they  should  tell  no  man  of 
him".  Luke  says:  "And  He  asked  them  saying:  Who 
do  the  multitudes  say  that  I  am?  And  they  answering 
said :  John  the  Baptist ;  but  others  say  Elijah :  and 
others  that  one  of  the  old  prophets  is  risen  again.  And 
He  said  unto  them:  But  who  say  ye  that  I  am?  And 
Peter  answering  said :  The  Christ  of  God.  But  He 
charged  them,  and  commanded  them  to  tell  this  to  no 


THE  SYNOPTICS  235 

man"  In  Matthew  we  have,  after  Christ's  final  ques- 
tion :  "And  Simon  Peter  answered  and  said :  Thou  art 
the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God.  And  Jesus  an- 
swered and  said  unto  him :  Blessed  art  thou  Simon  Bar- 
Jonah  ;  for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee, 
but  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven.  And  I  also  say  unto 
thee  that  thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build 
my  Church ;  and  the  gates  of  Hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  it.  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven ;  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth 
shall  be  bound  in  heaven ;  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt 
loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven.  Then  charged 
He  the  disciples  that  they  should  tell  no  man  that  He 
was  the  Christ". 

Before  I  formally  consider  this  Petrine  text,  let  me 
remark  incidentally,  that  if  it  is  genuine,  it  seriously 
weakens  the  historical  value  of  the  fourth  Gospel.  For 
according  to  John,  Andrew  in  the  very  beginning  of 
Christ's  ministry,  recognizes  Him  as  Messiah,  and  speaks 
of  Him  as  such  to  his  brother  Simon  Peter.  "He 
[Andrew]  findeth  first  his  own  brother  Simon,  and  saith 
unto  him:  We  have  found  the  Messiah,  which  is,  being 
interpreted,  Christ".  It  is  too  obvious  that  if  Peter 
knew  of  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  at  that  early  date  and 
by  that  human  means,  he  could  not  later,  at  Caesarea 
Philippi,  have  been  so  prodigiously  rewarded  for  his 
Messianic  confession,  nor  could  it  have  been  said  that 
"flesh  and  blood"  had  not  revealed  it  to  him. 


236  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

But  the  fourth  Gospel  apart,  since  it  is  a  theological 
speculation  about  Christ  rather  than  a  history  of  Him, 
let  us  take  up  the  "Thou  art  Peter"  text. 

Immediately  following  Peter's  great  confession, 
Matthew  and  Mark  tell  of  his  remonstrating  with  Christ 
for  predicting  the  passion  and  death  in  Jerusalem.  Christ 
turns  upon  him  saying,  as  Matthew  gives  the  words, 
closely  following  Mark,  "Get  thee  behind  me  Satan. 
Thou  art  a  stumbling-block  unto  me;  for  thou  mindest 
not  the  things  of  God,  but  the  things  of  men".  Such 
a  rebuke,  merely  as  a  rebuke,  might  have  little  or  no 
bearing  on  the  immediately  preceding  texts  in  which 
Peter  is  so  marvelously  rewarded.  But  could  there  be 
a  more  startling  contrast  than  that  between :  "Flesh  and 
blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee ;  but  my  Father  who 
is  in  heaven",  and  "Thou  mindest  not  the  things  of  God, 
but  the  things  of  men?"  We  may  well  ask  if  it  is  pos- 
sible that  Christ  could  have  rebuked  Peter  for  being  so 
carnally-minded,  and  of  so  unspiritual  a  judgment  that 
he  minded  not  the  "things  of  God",  if  just  before,  the 
Lord  had  accredited  him  with  a  knowledge,  and  a 
spiritual  intuition  above  the  capacity  of  flesh  and  blood, 
and  bestowed  on  him  by  way  of  revelation  from  Al- 
mighty God.  It  is  hardly  in  accord  with  the  normal 
processes  of  the  human  mind  that  Christ  should  have  so 
soon  turned  from  the  glow  and  exaltation  of  His  ac- 
knowledgment that  Peter  was  in  communion  with  Deity, 
to  the  bitter  censure  of  him  as  a  man  who  was  not 
Godward-minded  at  all. 


THE  SYNOPTICS  237 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  extraordinary  silence  of 
Mark  and  Luke  concerning  this  text.  The  insecurity 
of  an  argumentum  ex  silentio  is  notorious ;  but  here  it 
possesses  certain  features  which  give  it  impressive  force. 
It  would  be  a  small  matter  if  Mark  and  Luke  simply 
omitted  an  incident  which  Matthew  describes ;  but  the 
case  in  point  is  far  more  serious  than  that.  Mark  and 
Luke  as  well  as  Matthew  tell  the  story  of  the  Mes- 
sianic confession ;  but,  if  Matthew  be  correct,  they  leave 
out  the  very  element  which  overshadows  all  other 
elements  in  its  importance  both  for  that  hour  at  Caesarea 
Philippi,  and  for  all  future  time.  If  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, Luke,  and  above  all  Mark,  the  earliest  of  the 
three,  knowingly  and  deliberately  mutilated  the  history 
of  the  incident  by  cutting  off  from  it  its  most  striking 
and  momentous  feature,  it  is  an  omission  which  is  abso- 
lutely inexplicable.  Reducing  the  problem  to  these  sim- 
ple terms :  Which  is  more  likely,  that  this  text  was  not 
known  to  Mark  and  does  not  belong  to  the  primiiiv^e 
tradition,  or  that  it  does  belong  to  the  primitive  tradition, 
and  was  deliberately  dropped  by  Mark?  Most  independent 
students  will  unquestionably  support  the  former  alterna- 
tive. 

The  text  itself  wears  the  look  of  having  been  super- 
posed upon  the  Marcan  narrative  by  the  final  redactor  of 
our  first  Gospel.  Mark  concludes  his  account  with  the 
words :  "And  He  charged  them  that  they  should  tell 
no  man  of  Him".  Luke  ends  thus :  "And  he  charged 
them  and  commanded  them  to  tell  this  to  no  man".    The 


238  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

"tell  no  man  of  Him"  of  Mark,  and  the  "tell  this  to  no 
man"  of  Luke  are  so  closely  joined  to  what  goes  before 
that  they  are  a  normal  ending  of  the  story,  and  clearly 
refer  to  Christ's  acceptance  of  Messiahship.  But 
Matthew,  having  thrust  into  the  narrative  the  long 
parenthesis  of  "Thou  art  Peter"  etc.  cannot  conclude 
in  this  natural,  and  apparently  primitive  manner.  Mark's 
"of  Him",  and  Luke's  "this",  would  be  ambiguous  with 
him,  so  far  would  they  be  separated  from  the  antecedent 
fact  that  they  refer  to.  So  Matthew  closes  his  account 
with:  "Then  charged  He  the  disciples  that  they  should 
tell  no  man  that  He  was  the  Christ".  This  may  seem  a 
small  matter,  but  to  one  trained  in  critical  processes,  it 
is  far  from  being  insignificant. 

If  the  text  was  not  known  to  the  earliest  tradition 
about  Christ,  whence  did  it  come?  We  cannot  of  course 
answer  with  certainty,  but  there  is  a  probability  which 
is  at  least  as  strong  as  any  that  stands  in  favor  of  the 
text  as  genuine,  that  it  arose  out  of  the  controversy  in 
the  early  Church  between  the  Judaizing  and  the  Pauline 
Christians.  Every  one  knows  that  at  the  very  outset  of 
Christianity,  the  most  vital  question  before  the  new  faith 
was  whether  it  was  bound  by  the  Jewish  law,  or  was  free 
from  it.  The  first  Jerusalem  converts  went  to  the  temple 
as  of  old,  practiced  circumcision  and  all  other  precepts 
of  the  Law,  and,  except  that  they  recognized  Jesus  as 
Messiah,  and  waited  in  high  expectation  for  His  second 
coming,  they  were  but  slightly  distinguishable  from  the 
other  Jews  around  them.     Paul  saved  Christianity  from 


THE  SYNOPTICS  239 

becoming  merely  a  Jewish  sect.  He  declared  that  right- 
eousness came  not  from  the  works  of  the  Law,  but  from 
faith  in  Christ,  and  that  the  Gospel  meant  liberty  from 
the  ancient  rites  of  Judaism.  How  bitterly  he  was  op- 
posed by  the  "false  brethren",  Judaizing  Christians  who 
denied  his  right  to  the  apostolic  office,  and  accounted  his 
"law  of  liberty"  a  sacrilege,  his  own  letters  bear  witness. 
James  was  a  rigid  Judaizer,  and  Peter  also  was  closely 
connected  with  that  party.  Peter  was  probably  re- 
garded as  the  leader  of  the  apostles.  Christ  Himself 
seems  to  have  made  him  so.  With  Peter  therefore,  who 
certainly  did  not  wish  to  lead  a  faction,  the  Judaizers 
associated  themselves  and  kept  up  an  attack  upon  Paul 
of  which  we  have  more  than  one  trace  in  early  Christian 
literature.  The  most  dramatic  incident  known  to  us  of 
this  momentous  discord,  is  the  open  conflict  between 
Peter  and  Paul  at  Antioch  which  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  describes.  If  the  Judaizers  exalted  Peter,  "the 
apostle  of  the  circumcision",  the  Gentiles  exalted  Paul, 
"the  apostle  of  the  uncircumcized" ;  and  the  question 
which  was  the  greater,  was,  we  may  be  sure,  a  frequent 
topic  of  debate  among  the  first  believers.  The  Judaizers 
were  naturally  strongest  in  Jerusalem  and  throughout 
Palestine,  and  there  the  insistence  on  Peter's  supremacy 
was  most  vehement.  Is  it  not  a  well-grounded  proba- 
bility that  it  was  there,  and  for  the  reasons  just  men- 
tioned, that  the  story  arose  of  Peter's  having  been  so 
wonderfully  empowered  by  the  Lord  that  Paul  must  be 
considered,  in  comparison,  but  a  secondary  personage? 


24O  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

Matthew's  Gospel  is  pre-eminently  Palestinian  and  most 
colored  by  Jewish  modes  of  thought,  and  it  is  quite  in 
the  natural  order  of  things  that  it  should  contain  the 
legend  which  the  non-Palestinian  Mark  and  Luke  have 
not.  This  probability  is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that 
Matthew  shows  throughout  a  notable  disposition  to  put 
Peter  forward.  In  giving  the  list  of  the  apostles,  he  alone 
calls  Simon  Peter  the  "first".  He  alone  gives  the 
incident  of  Peter's  walking  upon  the  water,  and  of  his 
rescue  by  Christ's  stretching  forth  His  hand  and 
taking  hold  of  him,  a  narrative  which  wears  a  very 
dubious  look  indeed.  Matthew  xv.  15  makes  Peter  ask 
Christ  to  explain  the  parable ;  whereas  in  the  parallel 
of  the  earlier  Mark  (vii.  17)  "His  disciples  asked  of 
Him  the  parable".  Matthew  alone  has  the  story  of 
Peter's  finding  the  shekel  in  the  fish's  mouth.  He  alone 
thrusts  forward  Peter  as  asking:  "Lord,  how  often  shall 
my  brother  sin  against  me  and  I  forgive  him?"  Christ 
answers:  "Until  seven  times"  etc.,  which  is  a  variation 
of  a  text  in  Luke  (xvii.  3,  4)  that  is  totally  unconnected 
with  Peter.  And  finally  Matthew  alone,  of  course,  con- 
tains the  mighty  text  which  we  are  considering  now. 
Two  or  three  occasions  there  are  indeed  in  which  Mark 
or  Luke  mention  Peter,  where  Matthew  in  his  parallel 
passages  does  not  mention  him.  But  taking  the  first 
Gospel  as  a  whole,  we  must  regard  it  as  attributing  im- 
mensely more  to  the  leader  of  the  Apostles  than  the  other 
Gospels  attribute  to  him — a  fact  which,  for  the  reason 


THE  SYNOPTICS  24I 

already   stated,   bears   directly   on   the   probability   of   a 
Judaizing  origin  of  xvi.   17-19. 

Finally  the  word  "Church"  in  this  Petrine  text  would 
be  enough,  if  not  actually  to  condemn  it,  at  least  to  make 
as  careful  in  examining  it.  "Church"  occurs  only  twice 
in  the  Gospels,  both  times  in  Matthew.  The  other  in- 
stance is  that  in  which  Christ  is  made  to  say  that  an 
erring  brother,  who  has  resisted  fraternal  correction, 
shall  be  reported  to  the  "Church"  (xvii.  17).  The  word 
was  not  unknown  to  the  Jews  of  Our  Lord's  time ;  but, 
as  employed  in  Matthew,  it  is  so  extremely  likely  to  be 
a  reflection  of  a  faith  which  had  undergone  at  least  a 
full  generation  of  development,  that  we  have  only  too 
much  reason  to  suspect  it.  The  idea  of  a  Church  as  we 
understand  it  would  have  been  utterly  unintelligible  to 
the  disciples — perhaps  even,  as  we  shall  see  later,  to 
Christ  Himself — at  the  time  when  these  words  are  said 
to  have  been  spoken.  The  disciples  towards  the  close  of 
their  Lord's  ministry,  and  equally  conspicuously  after 
His  resurrection,  believed  in  the  imminent  advent  of  the 
Messianic  kingdom.  The  world  they  thought  was  soon 
to  end,  the  great  judgment  transacted,  and  the  glorious 
era  of  Messiah's  reign  begun.  Men  in  this  state  of  mind 
could  have  no  possible  comprehension  of  a  Church ;  and 
surely  if  Christ  often  thought  it  necessary  to  explain  to 
them  very  simple  parables,  He  should  not  have  suddenly 
dropped  upon  them  this  new,  unconnected,  and  wholly 
nnprepared-for  idea,  and  said  no  word  as  to  what  it 
meant. 


242  FAITH   AND  CRITICISM 

For  reasons  of  this  tenor,  the  critical  scholars  of  the 
New  Testament  are  preponderatingly  against  the  genu- 
ineness of  Matthew  xvi.  17-19.  The  more  we  study  the 
matter,  the  more  we  shall  be  inclined  to  agree  with  them. 

It  would  be  both  interesting  and  profitable  to  go  at 
greater  length  into  this  matter  of  the  traces  of  a  later 
time  which  are  contained  in  the  Gospels,  but  merely  to 
have  called  attention  to  the  fact  suffices  for  my  present 
purpose.  It  would  be  particularly  illuminating  to  investi- 
gate the  birth-stories  of  Matthew  and  Luke,  where  we 
see  devout  legend  growing  under  our  very  eyes,  as  a 
comparative  study  of  the  two  narratives  will  show ;  or  to 
make  the  Trinity  text  of  Matthew  a  basis  for  a  study  of 
the  doctrine,  certainly  never  taught  by  Christ,  of  the  tri- 
Personal  Deity.  But  since  my  object  just  now  is  simply 
to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  we  must,  in  reading  the 
Gospels,  penetrate  beneath  the  deposits  left  by  developing 
doctrine,  if  we  would  know  the  authentic  good-tidings  of 
the  Lord;  and  since  this  object  has,  I  believe,  been 
sufficiently  achieved,  it  is  time  now  to  see  what  Christ's 
message  was  before  the  progress  of  the  years  and  the 
growth  of  theological  thought  reacted  upon  and  modi- 
fied it. 

One  word  however,  before  I  treat  of  this.  In  apply- 
ing these  critical  methods  to  the  Gospel-narrative,  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  modern  students  either  ex- 
plicitly or  implicitly  accuse  the  evangelists  of  bad  faith. 
To  imagine  that  our  four  canonical  biographers  of  Christ 
could  not  have  yielded  to  a  theological  or  apologetic  ten- 


THE  SYNOPTICS  243 

dency  without  consciously  falsifying,  would  be  a  very 
crude  mistake  which  no  one  at  all  familiar  with  the 
history  of  religions  could  make.  Religious  legends  grow 
out  of  the  impulse  of  faith ;  they  are  not  the  fabrications 
of  cold  calculation.  It  is  often  hard  to  discover  clearly 
whence  or  how  they  arise.  They  simply  appear.  They 
are  an  inevitable  product  of  the  devout  fancy  of  primitive 
believers  everywhere.  And  in  an  age  when  critical  his- 
tory is  unknown,  a  great  many  of  them  will  survive, 
become  widespread,  and  perhaps  be  enshrined  in  litera- 
ture. Likewise  it  is  simply  inevitable  that  in  similar  cir- 
cumstances, doctrines  which  appear  late  will  be  thrown 
back  into  an  earlier  period  and  fastened  upon  a  great 
religious  founder.  "What  is  he  ?"  and  "What  did  he  say 
and  do?"  are  the  sole  questions  which  preside  over  the 
researches  of  a  modern  critical  biographer.  "What  must 
he  have  been?  What  must  he  have  said  and  done?"  is 
rather  the  standpoint  of  the  theological  biographer.  The 
authors  of  our  first  and  third  Gospels  were  conscious  of 
no  fault  whatever,  when  they  changed  e.  g.,  Mark's  primi- 
tive: "He  healed  many",  to  "He  healed  all",  and  "He 
healed  everyone" ;  or  when  they  omit  the  discreditable 
incident  contained  in  the  earliest  tradition,  that  the  Lord's 
friends  sought  to  restrain  Him,  thinking  Him  mad.  Nor 
were  they  guilty  of  falsehood  in  accepting  the  story  of 
Christ's  birth  at  Bethlehem  with  all  the  dreams,  celestial 
visitations  and  mighty  miracles  which  then  and  just  be- 
fore then,  occurred.  We  understand  that  Jesus  was  born 
at  Nazareth,  and  perceive  that   His   later  life  gives   a 


244  FAITH   AND  CRITICISM 

practically  decisive  denial  to  the  fancy  that  He  was 
marked  out  from  His  cradle  as  the  object  of  a  series  of 
public  prodigies.  But  surely  we  can  regard  sympathetic- 
ally the  faith  of  the  early  believers  whose  state  of  mind 
was  that  Messiah,  as  of  David's  line,  must  have  been 
born  in  David's  city,  and  could  not  have  entered  the 
world  as  an  ordinary  child  of  man,  but  must  have  been 
attended  with  many  signs  of  divine  favor.  All  this  indi- 
cates the  normal  processes  of  early  religious  thought. 
So  when  we,  whose  methods  and  temperament  are  less 
primitive,  seek  to  lift  the  veil  of  legend  and  apologetic, 
we  thereby  accuse  no  one  of  falsehood,  and  we  may, 
even  in  using  the  most  searching  instruments  of  criticism, 
be  as  reverent  according  to  our  light,  as  were  ever 
evangelist  and  theologian  according  to  theirs. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Christ's  conception  of  the  kingdom. 

"P  VERY  rightly  ordered  investigation  into  the  message 
of  Jesus  must  begin  with  the  "Kingdom  of  heaven 
(God)".  The  "Kingdom"  is  the  constant  theme  of 
Christ's  preaching,  from  the  first  utterance  of  His  public 
ministry,  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand",  to  the  last 
words  spoken  before  He  left  the  supper-table  for  the 
mount  of  Olives :  "Verily  I  say  unto  you,  I  will  no  more 
drink  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine  until  that  day  when  I  drink 
it  new  in  the  kingdom  of  God"  (Mark.  xiv.  25)  ;  or  as 
Luke  has  it,  "I  will  not  drink  from  henceforth  of  the 
fruit  of  the  vine  until  the  kingdom  of  God  shall  come" 
(Luke  xx-ii.  18).  This  fundamental  certainty  we  possess, 
that  Jesus  announced  the  kingdom,  and  that  the  kingdom, 
with  the  conditions  for  entering  it,  is  the  sum  and  sub- 
stance, the  soul  and  essence  of  His  preaching.  If  we 
know  the  original  meaning  of  the  Kingdom,  we  shall 
know  Jesus.  With  the  object  of  bringing  as  much  light 
as  possible  to  bear  upon  this  Gospel-theme,  I  will  give  a 
brief  sketch  of  its  history  in  Jewish  thought. 

The  Jews  emerged  from  the  exile  with  a  new  and  pro- 
foundly important  belief.  This  was  that  the  world  is 
under  the  dominion  of  a  personal  devil,  Satan,  who  fights 
against  God  and  oppresses  God's  elect;  and  that  this  era 

245 


246  FAITH   AND  CRITICISM 

of  evil  will  continue  until  Messiah  comes  to  cast  down 
Satan,  to  destroy  evil,  and  to  establish  the  kingdom  of 
God.  Some  preparation  there  was  doubtless  for  this 
belief  in  the  apparently  pre-exilic  idea  of  Yom  Yahwe — 
the  day  of  Yahwe.  But  the  distance  between  the  earlier 
notion  of  the  "Day",  and  that  of  the  "new  heavens  and 
the  new  earth",  of  pseudo-Isaiah,  or  the  "Malkuth"  of 
Daniel  is  very  great  indeed.  The  old  "Day  of  Yahwe", 
was  nearly  always  conceived  simply  as  the  time  when 
Yahwe  in  His  wrath  would  destroy  the  enemies  of  Israel. 
The  vaster  conception  of  a  mighty  world-drama  in  which 
God,  through  Messiah,  fights  victoriously  against  this 
"World"  or  "age",  olam,  and  establishes  on  the  ruins  of 
the  present  heavens  and  earth,  a  pure  and  perfect  king- 
dom for  His  saints,  may  have  been  a  normal  development 
from  certain  ideas  in  Amos  and  Hosea ;  or  it  may  have 
drawn  its  new  elements  from  the  wonderful  religion  of 
Zoroaster,  with  which  the  Jews  had  come  into  close  con- 
tact during  the  exile. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  Zoroastrian  theology  was 
dualism.  There  was  a  kingdom  of  good  under  the 
leadership  of  the  great  god  Ahura  Mazda,  and  a  kingdom 
of  evil,  of  which  the  chieftain  was  Ahriman,  the  Persian 
Satan.  The  constant  conflict  between  these  ghostly 
powers  was  to  culminate  in  a  mighty  battle  at  the  end  of 
the  world.  Ahriman  and  his  evil  legions  will  then  fight 
against  the  Amesha  Spentas,  the  Persian  archangels,  and 
all  the  good  spirits  of  Ahura  Mazda.  God's  foremost 
captain    in    this    tremendous    war    will    be    the    Savior, 


CHRIST  S    KINGDOM  247 

Sraoshyant,  who  will  be  born  of  a  virgin.  With  Ahura 
Mazda,  Sraoshyant  will  at  last  destroy  Ahriman  and  the 
great  serpent  Azhi ;  and  then  will  purity  and  righteous- 
ness reign  forever  in  Ahura  Mazda's  kingdom.  "At  the 
world's  end  Thou  shalt  come  with  thy  holy  Spirit,  O 
Wise  One,  and  with  Thy  kingdom",  says  a  Zoroastrian 
Yasna;  and  again:  "When  punishment  is  visited  upon 
evil-doers,  then  O  Mazda,  will  thy  kingdom  come  through 
the  good  Spirit". 

While  I  do  not  wish  to  speak  too  decisively  on  a  mat- 
ter which  is  still  controverted,  it  is  a  conservative  state- 
ment to  make,  that  modern  scholarship  is  convinced  that 
Persian  theology  exercised  a  notable  influence  on  Jewish 
beliefs ;  and  is  strongly  disposed  to  attribute  a  great  part 
of  post-exilic  Jewish  eschatology  to  Zoroastrian  sources. 
Certainly  after  their  contact  with  the  Persians,  the  Jews 
show  a  great  development  of  Messiahism,  and  in  their 
new  idea  of  a  world  of  sin  under  a  personal  devil,  they 
manifest  a  most  impressive  resemblance  to  the  cardinal 
tenet  of  the  Zoroastrian  creed. 

From  the  time  of  the  composition  of  the  later  parts  of 
Isaiah,  to  the  downfall  of  Jerusalem,  70  A.  D.,  Messiah- 
ism was,  in  the  words  of  Baldensperger,  the  passion  of 
Judaism.  Conquered  and  oppressed  by  the  Gentile,  the 
Jews  lifted  up  their  eyes  to  Messiah  who  would  save 
them.  They  let  their  imagination  revel  in  pictures  of  the 
woe  and  destruction  that  would  come  upon  the  enemies 
of  God.  They  dwelt,  as  did  later  the  mediaeval  monks, 
upon  the  awful  judgment  which  should  close  the  history 


248  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

of  this  evil  world.     They  took  comfort  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  saints'  everlasting  rest ;  and  they  kindled  in 
the  midst  of  their  race  the  hope,  the  ardent  expectation, 
that  these  things  would  soon  come  to  pass.     A  great 
apocalyptic,  or  as  we  may  fitly  term  it,  Messianic,  litera- 
ture arose  as  a  product  of  this  mighty  desire.    The  book 
of  Daniel  is  the  most  typical  instance  of  it  among  the 
canonical  books ;  but  outside  the  Bible,  books  of  similar 
spirit  were  composed,  and,  as  was  the  case  with  Daniel, 
had  a  profound  influence  upon  popular  ideas.     Among 
these  non-canonical,  pre-Christian  Jewish  apocalypses,  the 
most  significant  are  the  book  of  Enoch,  whose  various 
parts  date  from  nearly  200  B.  C.  for  the  earliest  to  about 
70  B.  C.  for  the  latest ;  the  third  book  of  Sibylline  Oracles 
between  130  and  30  B.  C. ;  the  Psalms  of  Solomon  70-40 
B.  C. ;  and  the  Apocalypses  of  Ezra  and  Baruch,  about 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era.    Out  of  this  literature 
let  me  give  a  few  examples  of  the  hope  that  stirred  in 
Jewish   breasts,   when    Christ   came   upon   the    scene   of 
history. 

1.  The  renovation  of  the  world:  "For  behold  I  create 
new  heavens  and  a  new  earth  .  .  .  Behold  I  create 
Jerusalem  a  rejoicing,  and  her  people  a  joy  .  .  .  the 
voice  of  weeping  shall  no  more  be  heard  in  her,  nor  the 
voice  of  crying  (Isaiah  lxv.  17,  18). 

2.  The  last  tribulation :  "And  there  shall  be  a  time  of 
trouble  such  as  never  was  since  there  was  a  nation  even 
to  that  same  time"  (Dan.  xii.  1).  The  book  of  Enoch 
gives  the  following  among  the  "signs"  of  that  awful  day 


CHRIST  S    KINGDOM  249 

of  Messiah's  judgment :  Commotion  throughout  the 
earth ;  shortening  of  the  year ;  the  moon  and  sun  not 
shining  at  their  proper  times ;  miscarriages ;  father  and 
son,  brother  and  brother  will  be  struck  down  together 
(Enoch  lxxx. ;  xcii.,  cii.  80;  92-102).  The  Ezra- 
apocalypse  has  the  following  description :  "See,  the  day 
cometh  when  the  earth-dwellers  will  be  seized  with  a 
mighty  fear  .  .  .  Unrighteousness  will  wax  strong 
.  .  .  The  sun  will  shine  by  night  and  the  moon  by  day. 
Blood  will  flow  from  trees  .  .  .  The  nations  will  be  in 
agitation ;  the  doors  of  heaven  in  disorder  .  .  .  Women 
will  bring  forth  untimely  births :  .  .  .  The  trumpet  will 
sound.  All  men  will  hear  it  and  will  tremble  .  .  .  Then 
will  great  troubles  fall  upon  men ;  they  shall  wage  war 
upon  one  another — city  upon  city,  place  upon  place,  people 
upon  people,  kingdom  upon  kingdom"  (4  Ez.  v.-xiii). 
Says  the  Apocalypse  of  Baruch :  "Everyone  that  survives 
the  war  shall  die  by  earthquake ;  everyone  that  survives 
the  earthquake  shall  burn  in  the  fire ;  everyone  that  sur- 
vives the  fire  shall  perish  of  famine ;  and  all  who  pass 
through  these  dangers  .  .  .  shall  be  given  into  the 
hands  of  my  Servant  Messiah  (lxx.). 

Woe  to  those  then  living  (Ez.  13)  ;  It  is  a  day  of  wrath 
(Bar.  48)  ;  The  stars  will  fall  from  heaven  (Enoch  41, 
43,  69  Ps.  Sol.  1810  Ez.  6)  ;  Friend  will  turn  against 
friend  (Ez.  5,  6)  ;  There  will  be  rains  and  no  frosts 
(Sib.  Or.  3539)  ;  Kindred  will  fight  with  kindred  (Bar. 
70  En.  100)  ;  There  will  be  revolutions  and  wars  (En. 
99 — Sib.  Or.  3G60-5-361)  .  Swords  will  appear  in  heaven 


25O  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

(Sib.  Or.  3)  ;  Fire  from  heaven  will  kill  men  (Sib.  Or. 

.,635     r376\ 

3.  Messiah's  Precursor.  The  Samaritans  expected 
that  Moses  would  come  again.  Rabbi  Johanan  b. 
Sakkai  taught  that  Moses  would  come  with  Elijah. 
Ezra  and  Baruch  say  Enoch  and  Elijah  will  reappear. 

But  in  Rabbinic  theology  the  great  Precursor  is  Elijah. 
The  doctors  of  the  law  taught  that  Elijah  must  appear 
before  Messiah  can  come.  The  Jerusalem  Targum  on 
Exodus  xl.  10,  calls  Elijah  the  high  priest  who  will  be 
sent  at  the  end  of  the  exile.  The  Yalkut  Schimeoni 
says:  "When  the  Holy  One — blessed  be  He! — shall  re- 
deem Israel,  three  days  before  Messiah  comes  Elijah  shall 
appear".  Again  the  expectation  was  that  Jeremiah  or 
some  other  of  the  great  prophets  would  prepare  Mes- 
siah's way. 

4.  Messiah's  advent:  Messiah  will  come  before  the 
great  judgment.  Enoch  xc.  90,  is  an  exception  to  this, 
assigning  the  promised  one's  appearance  after  the  judg- 
ment. He  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  Man  (Enoch).  He 
existed  before  the  creation  of  the  world  (Enoch,  4  Ezra). 
He  is  the  Just  one  who  will  punish  sinners  (Enoch  38). 
He  will  judge  from  the  throne  of  God  (Enoch  45).  He 
will  go  through  heaven  and  earth  to  gather  his  elect 
(En.  45).  "I  saw  another  whose  face  was  as  the  face 
of  a  man,  full  of  meekness.  .  .  .  This  is  the  Son  of 
Man  who  possesses  righteousness,  in  whom  dwells  right- 
eousness; who  will  reveal  all  hidden  things"  (En.  46). 
The  Son  of  Man  was  known  to  God  before  the  creation 


CHRIST  S    KINGDOM  25 1 

of  the  sun  and  stars.  He  will  be  a  staff  to  the  just,  the 
light  of  peoples,  and  the  hope  of  troubled  hearts.  For 
this  was  he  elected  before  the  world  was  made ;  and  he 
will  be  before  God  forever.  The  wisdom  of  the  Lord  of 
Spirits  reveals  him  to  the  just.  In  his  name  will  they  be 
saved.  He  is  the  avenger  (or  redeemer?)  of  their  lives. 
The  wicked  will  disappear  from  before  his  face  as  straw 
in  the  fire  (En.  48).  In  him  dwells  the  spirit  of  wisdom 
and  the  power  of  righteousness  (En.  49).  Repentance 
must  be  the  preparation  for  Messiah  (En.  50).  Soon 
will  come  a  holy  king  who  will  rule  the  world  (Sib.  Or. 
3363).  Before  the  birth  of  Pharaoh,  the  last  Goel  (i.  e. 
Messiah)  was  born  (Beresch  rabba  85).  "Happy  the 
hour  when  Messiah  was  created ;  happy  the  womb  that 
bears  him ;  happy  they  that  behold  him ;  happy  the  eyes 
that  are  worthy  to  look  upon  him  (Pesikta  149)  :  "When 
thou  seest  a  man  rise  from  the  heart  of  the  sea,  he  it  is 
whom  the  Most  High  has  appointed  by  whom  He  will 
redeem  the  world"  (4  Ez.  13). 

5.  The  great  judgment :  "With  a  loud  voice  God  will 
speak  to  the  whole  people  that  devise  vain  things,  and 
judgment  will  come  upon  them  from  the  Mighty  God, 
and  they  will  all  be  driven  by  the  immortal  Hand. 
Swords  of  fire  will  fall  from  heaven  upon  the  earth. 
Great  torches  will  fall  blazing  amongst  men.  In  that  day 
the  earth  will  be  shaken  by  the  immortal  Hand.  The 
fishes  of  the  sea,  the  beasts  of  the  land,  the  numberless 
birds,  the  souls  of  men  and  the  sea  will  tremble  before 
the  immortal  Face,  and  there  will  be  woe  .  .  .  The  walls 


252  FAITH   AND  CRITICISM 

elaborately  built  by  wicked  men  will  collapse,  because  the 
wicked  have  not  acknowledged  the  law  of  the  Great  God, 
nor  His  judgment  .  .  .  God  will  judge  them  all  .  .  . 
There  will  be  cries  of  woe  and  shrieks  of  conflict  over  the 
earth  while  men  are  gathering  together  .  .  .  He  Him- 
self, the  mighty  Eternal  God  has  bidden  me  to  prophesy 
these  things.  It  will  not  be  unfulfilled — "  (Sib.  Or. 
3669sq).  The  Most  High  will  rise  up  in  that  day  of  judg- 
ment, and  hold  judgment  upon  all  sinners.  He  will  set 
His  holy  angels  as  guardians  over  the  just,  to  guard  them 
as  the  apple  of  their  eye,  until  He  makes  an  end  of  all 
wickedness  and  all  sin"  (Ap.  Baruch,  100).  The  deeds 
of  men  are  written  in  heavenly  books  (En.  48,  89,  90. 
Jubilees).  Messiah  judges  from  the  throne  of  God  (En. 
45).  The  dead  will  come  to  judgment  (En.  51,  Dan. 
12).  "I  saw  the  host  of  punishing  angels  holding  whips 
and  chains  of  iron  and  brass"  (En.  56).  The  mighty 
and  the  wicked  will  be  cast  down,  and  all  the  elect  will 
gather  to  the  Son  of  Man  (En.  61-62).  The  fallen 
angels  and  the  apostate  Jews  shall  be  flung  into  a  pit 
of  fire  (En.). 

6.  When  will  these  things  be?  "Hope  and  sigh  for 
the  judgment,  for  you  shall  be  as  the  angels  of  heaven 
for  joy"  (En.  104).  The  Great  "end"  was  to  come  soon: 
the  kingdom  of  God  and  Messiah  was  near.  "May  the 
Holy  One  come  in  our  day !"  was  a  frequent  ejaculation 
of  the  rabbis.  In  the  nature  of  things,  late  Judaism 
must  have  looked  for  a  speedy  advent  of  the  Holy  One. 
For  not  only  the  relief  of  the  Jews,  but  God's  honor  was 


Christ's  kingdom  253 

at  stake.  Yahwe  had  from  of  old  promised  His  elect 
people  the  benedictions  of  His  divine  favor.  Yet  be- 
hold !  Babylon,  Persia,  Greece  and  Rome,  in  quick  suc- 
cession had  utterly  cast  down  and  trampled  upon  the 
chosen  children  of  God.  What  had  become  of  Yahwe's 
promises?  The  temptation  to  scepticism  was  terrible; 
and  sceptics  had  arisen  and  were  every  day  growing  more 
numerous  in  Israel.  But  in  the  face  of  Sadducean 
scoffing,  the  apocalyptic  writers  and  zealots  raised  their 
cry  that  the  day  was  at  hand.  The  just,  they  said,  are 
praying  for  it  (En.).  The  angels  are  beseeching  for  it 
(En.).  God  will  hasten  the  end,  and  shorten  the  time 
(Baruch  54,  83).  The  hours  will  run  quicker  (Bar.  30). 
The  end  will  be  at  "the  appointed  time"  (Dan.  n35,  Ez. 
620)  ;  in  the  fulness  of  time  (Bar.  40).  It  will  be  pre- 
ceded by  "signs",  and  the  just  will  recognize  these  signs. 
Daniel,  Enoch  and  the  Assumptio  Moysis  go  into  calcula- 
tions as  to  when  the  end  will  be.  The  Rabbis  did  not  as 
a  rule  favor  these  too  definite  forecastings ;  and  encour- 
aged the  belief  that  no  one  knew  the  hour  but  God.  But 
the  people  were  on  edge  for  Messiah's  appearance. 
Apocalyptic  ideas  had  wide  popularity  and  influence. 
False  Christs  arose  and  stimulated  the  great  hope  to  a 
fever  of  desire.  The  zealot  Hiskea  after  the  death  of 
Herod  raised  the  cry :  "Down  with  Rome !  We  have  no 
king  but  God!"  Other  pseudo- Messiahs  took  the  names 
of  prophets.  Some  called  the  people  to  the  desert  where 
they  would  see  wonders  wrought  by  God  (Josephus, 
B.  J.  11250;  A.  J.  xx.  16/).     Under  Festus,  an  impostor 


254  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

promised  to  bring  redemption  (A.  J.  xx.  188),  and  ac- 
cording to  Josephus  the  Jews  were  incited  to  their  final 
disastrous  insurrection  against  Rome  by  an  oracle  which 
assured  them  that  the  time  had  come  when  one  of  their 
race  should  rule  the  world  (B.  J.  vi.  312).  Finally  under 
Hadrian  came  the  well-known  flaming  out  of  Messianic 
enthusiasm,  when  Bar-Chochba,  "Son  of  a  star",  made 
his  claim  to  be  the  Anointed,  and  was  hailed  as  Messiah 
by  even  Akiba,  one  of  the  most  illustrious  doctors  of  the 
Jews.  Even  the  pagans  could  not  fail  to  notice  this  stir 
in  Israel.  Tacitus  writes  that  the  conviction  prevailed 
in  the  East,  "tit  valesceret  Oriens,  profecti  Judaea  rerum 
potirentur"  (Hist.  v.  13). 

This  then  is  the  immediate  background  of  the  Gospel : 
The  kingdom  of  God  is  near.  Elijah  the  Precursor  will 
soon  announce  Messiah.  Messiah,  pre-existent  with  God, 
will  come  to  destroy  the  wicked  and  to  reign  in  peace 
among  the  just.  There  will  be  mighty  "signs"  betoken- 
ing the  end  of  this  evil  world,  and  the  approach  of  the 
general  judgment.  Stars  will  fall ;  the  sun  and  moon 
will  shine  unnaturally;  there  will  be  fire  and  war  and 
earthquake ;  woe  to  those  with  child,  for  children  shall 
be  misbegotten!  the  dead  will  rise  to  judgment;  the 
wicked  will  be  flung  into  pools  of  fire.  Repent,  the  day 
is  near! 

Such  was  the  condition  of  mind  among  the  Jews,  when 
Christ  appeared ;  a  condition  created  and  intensified  by  a 
current  of  apocalyptic  ideas  which  represented  a  de- 
graded but  still  sublime  form  of  prophetism,  and  sprang 


CHRIST  S    KINGDOM  255 

immediately  from  the  sorrows  and  the  shame  of  subju- 
gated Israel.  It  was  practically  inevitable  that  a  devout 
Jew  of  that  time  should  share  these  expectations,  just  as 
to  take  a  remote  similitude — it  was  inevitable  that  a  high- 
souled  New  Englander  of  half  a  century  ago,  who  had 
grown  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  abolitionism,  should  be- 
lieve and  hope  that  the  hour  of  negro  emancipation  was 
about  to  strike.  Those  expectations  were  in  the  air. 
Jehovah's  honor  was  bound  up  with  the  fulfillment  of 
them.  The  ancient  prophecies  suggested  them.  The 
anxiety  of  the  people's  hearts  was  a  sign  that  the  time 
was  near.  So  far  then  ought  we  to  be  from  regarding 
a  devout  son  of  the  Israel  of  that  day  who  was  inflamed 
with  his  nation's  holiest  hope,  as  a  victim  of  foolish 
hallucination,  that  we  should  rather  look  upon  him  with 
reverence  as  one  devoted  to  an  Ideal,  and  a  divine  Ideal. 
Only  accidentally,  after  all,  would  such  a  man  be  in 
error ;  and  the  error  itself  was  not  of  his  making,  but 
was  humanly  speaking  unavoidable.  His  hope,  his  zeal, 
his  hunger  and  thirst  for  God's  righteous  kingdom,  were 
true  and  sacred,  and  such  as  may  give  a  lesson  to  every 
later  age.  His  mistaking  the  accidental  conditions  and 
the  time  of  the  kingdom's  advent  is  of  small  importance 
in  itself,  and  need  not  detract  at  all  from  whatever 
spiritual  message  he  might  have  announced. 

Out  of  the  midst  of  Messiah-expecting  Israel  came 
John  the  Baptist.  He  unquestionably  preached  the 
apocalyptic  message  that  the  great  day  was  near.  "Re- 
pent ye:  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand.    Even 


256  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

now  is  the  axe  laid  on  the  root  of  the  trees.  There 
cometh  He  that  is  mightier  than  I  .  .  .  whose  fan  is  in 
his  hand  thoroughly  to  cleanse  his  threshing-floor,  and 
to  gather  the  wheat  into  his  garner ;  but  the  chaff  he  will 
burn  with  unquenchable  fire.  Ye  offspring  of  vipers  who 
warned  you  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come"?  These 
words,  taken  in  connection  with  the  antecedents  and 
environment  of  the  preacher,  and  studied  in  the  light  of 
the  crowds  that  thronged  to  the  Jordan — "Then  went  out 
unto  him  Jerusalem  and  all  Judaea  and  all  the  regions 
round  about  Jordan" — and  of  the  eager  questions  put 
by  the  people  who  "were  in  expectation",  "whether  haply 
he  were  Messiah",  prove  conclusively  that  John  and  his 
followers  shared  the  belief  of  that  day  that  the  "kingdom" 
was  "at  hand",  and  "the  wrath  to  come"  approaching. 

One  of  those  that  went  down  into  the  waters  of  the 
Jordan  to  receive  the  baptism  of  John  was  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  an  action  of  our  Lord's  which  shows  that  He 
entered  with  sympathy  into  the  message  of  the  Precursor. 
Shortly  afterward  when  John,  having  been  put  in  prison, 
could  preach  no  more,  "Jesus  came  into  Galilee,  preach- 
ing the  Gospel  of  God,  and  saying:  The  time  is  fulfilled, 
and  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand.  Repent  ye,  and 
believe  in  the  Gospel"  (Mark  i.  14,  15).  "From  that 
time  began  Jesus  to  preach,  and  to  say :  "Repent  ye,  for 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand"  (Matt.  iv.  17).  From 
this  time  until  the  end  of  His  life,  our  Lord  took  over 
from  the  Old  Testament,  from  the  apocalypses,  and  from 
the  Baptist,  the  idea  of  the  kingdom,  and  made  it  the 


CHRIST  S    KINGDOM 


257 


sovereign  thought,  though  divinely  purifying  it,  of  the 
Christian  Gospel. 

Was  Christ  too  under  the  impression  that  the  King- 
dom, in  an  eschatological  sense,  was  at  hand?  Did  He 
think  that  the  world  was  soon  to  end,  and  God's  judg- 
ment to  come  amid  catastrophes  of  nature  and  woes  of 
men?  Did  He  in  preaching  the  kingdom  look  down 
through  an  indefinite  course  of  future  history;  or  did 
He  expect  that  the  glory  of  the  Messianic  era  would 
flash  forth  from  the  clouds  of  heaven  in  His  own  life- 
time or  shortly  after?  These  questions  are  important — 
though  I  think  too  great  an  importance  can  be  given 
them — and  must  be  answered  according  to  the  evidence. 

I  will  set  forth  the  main  texts  bearing  upon  the  prob- 
lem, and  later  endeavor  to  draw  such  conclusions  as  they 
seem  to  warrant. 

1.  "Now  after  that  John  was  delivered  up,  Jesus 
came  into  Galilee  preaching  the  Gospel  of  God,  and 
saying:  The  time  is  fulfilled,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
at  hand.    Repent  ye".    Mk.  i.  14,  15  cf.  Matt.  iv.  17. 

2.  Charging  the  Twelve  as  they  set  out  on  their  first 
mission  Jesus  said :  "And  as  ye  go,  preach,  saying,  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand".  "Go  not  into  any  way  of 
the  Gentiles,  and  enter  not  into  any  city  of  the  Samari- 
tans; but  go  rather  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of 
Israel". 

"Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Ye  shall  not  have  gone  through 
the  cities  of  Israel  till  the  Son  of  Man  come".  Matt.  x. 
7>  5,  6,  23. 


258  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

3.  "Whosoever  shall  be  ashamed  of  me  and  of  my 
words  in  this  adulterous  and  sinful  generation,  the  Son 
of  man  also  shall  be  ashamed  of  him  when  He  comes 
with  the  glory  of  His  father,  and  with  the  holy  angels". 
Mk.  viii.  38. 

4.  "He  said  to  the  multitudes  also:  When  ye  see  a 
cloud  rising  in  the  west,  straightway  ye  say:  There 
cometh  a  shower;  and  so  it  cometh  to  pass.  And  when 
ye  see  a  south  wind  blowing,  ye  say:  there  will  be  a 
scorching  heat;  and  it  cometh  to  pass.  Ye  hypocrites, 
ye  know  how  to  interpret  the  face  of  the  earth  and  the 
heavens ;  but  how  is  it  that  ye  know  not  how  to  interpret 
this  time?"    Lk.  xii.  54,  56;  Matt.  xvi.  2,  3. 

5.  "And  they  [the  disciples]  kept  the  saying,  ques- 
tioning among  themselves  what  the  rising  again  from  the 
dead  should  mean.  And  they  asked  Him  saying:  The 
scribes  say  that  Elijah  must  first  come.  And  He  said 
unto  them:  Elijah  indeed  cometh  first,  and  restoreth  all 
things  .  .  .  But  I  say  unto  you  that  Elijah  is  come". 
Mk.  ix.  10-13.  cf. ;  Matt.  xvii.  10-12. 

6.  "Now  from  the  fig-tree  learn  her  parable :  when 
her  branch  is  now  become  tender,  and  putteth  forth  its 
leaves,  ye  know  that'  the  summer  is  nigh.  Even  so  ye 
also  when  ye  see  these  things  [the  darkening  of  the  sun, 
the  falling  of  the  stars,  and  the  coming  of  the  Son  of 
man  in  clouds  with  glory]  coming  to  pass,  know  ye  that 
He  is  nigh,  even  at  the  doors.  Verily  I  say  unto  you, 
this  generation  shall  not  pass  away  until  all  these  things 
be    accomplished  .  .  .  But    of    that    day    or    that   hour 


CHRIST  S    KINGDOM  259 

knoweth  no  one,  not  even  the  angels  in  heaven,  nor  the 
Son,  but  the  Father.  Take  heed ;  watch  and  pray,  for  ye 
know  not  when  the  time  is  .  .  .  Watch  therefore,  for  ye 
know  not  when  the  lord  of  the  house  cometh,  whether 
at  even  or  at  midnight  or  at  cock-crowing  or  in  the 
morning ;  lest  coming  suddenly  he  find  you  sleeping.  And 
what  I  say  unto  you  I  say  unto  all :  Watch".  Mk.  xiii. 
"But  take  heed  to  yourselves  lest  haply  your  hearts  be 
overcharged  with  surfeiting  and  drunkenness,  and  cares 
of  this  life,  and  that  day  come  upon  you  suddenly  as  a 
snare,  for  so  it  shall  come  upon  all  them  that  dwell  on 
the  face  of  all  the  earth.  But  watch  ye  at  every  season, 
making  supplication  that  ye  may  prevail  to  escape  all 
these  things  that  shall  come  to  pass,  and  to  stand  before 
the  Son  of  man".  Lk.  xxi.  "And  as  were  the  days  of 
Noah,  so  shall  be  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man.  For 
as  in  those  days  which  were  before  the  flood,  they  were 
eating  and  drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage 
until  the  day  that  Noah  entered  the  ark,  and  they  knew 
not  until  the  flood  came  and  took  them  all  away ;  so  shall 
be  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  .  .  .  Watch  therefore 
for  ye  know  not  on  what  day  your  Lord  cometh  .  .  . 
Therefore  be  ye  also  ready,  for  in  an  hour  that  ye  think 
not,  the  Son  of  man  cometh".     Matt.  xxiv. 

7.  "But  at  midnight  there  is  a  cry :  Behold  the  bride- 
groom !  Come  ye  forth  to  meet  him  .  .  .  And  while 
they  went  away  to  buy,  the  bridegroom  came,  and  they 
that  were  ready  went  in  with  him  to  the  marriage-feast, 
and  the  door  was  shut.     Afterward  come  also  the  other 


200  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

virgins  saying,  Lord,  Lord,  open  to  us.  But  he  an- 
swered and  said :  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  I  know  you  not. 
Watch  therefore,  for  ye  know  not  the  day  nor  the  hour". 
Matt.  xxiv. 

8.  "But  know  this,  that  if  the  master  of  the  house 
had  known  in  what  hour  the  thief  was  coming,  he  would 
have  watched,  and  would  not  have  left  his  house  to  be 
broken  through.  Be  ye  also  ready ;  for  at  an  hour  that 
ye  think  not,  the  Son  of  man  cometh".    Lk.  xii.  39,  40. 

9.  "Fear  not  little  flock,  for  it  is  your  Father's  good 
pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom".    Lk.  xii.  32. 

10.  "And  shall  not  God  avenge  His  elect  who  cry  to 
Him  day  and  night,  and  He  is  long-suffering  over  them. 
I  say  unto  you  that  He  will  avenge  them  speedily.  How- 
beit  when  the  Son  of  man  cometh  shall  He  find  faith  on 
earth?"    Lk.  xviii.  7,  8. 

11.  "Let  your  loins  be  girded  about  and  your  lamps 
burning,  and  be  ye  yourselves  like  unto  men  looking  for 
their  lord  when  he  shall  return  from  the  marriage-feast, 
that  when  he  cometh  and  knocketh,  they  may  straightway 
open  unto  him".    Lk.  xii.  35,  36. 

12.  The  sower  is  the  Son  of  man ;  the  reapers  are 
the  angels.  "He  that  has  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear". 
Matt.  xiii.  43. 

13.  "Verily  I  say  unto  you,  there  be  some  here  of 
them  that  stand  by  which  shall  in  no  wise  taste  death, 
till  they  see  the  kingdom  of  God  come  with  power". 
Mk.  ix.  1. 

14.  "That  the  blood  of  all  the  prophets  which  was 


CHRIST  S    KINGDOM  201 

shed  from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  may  be  required 
of  'this  generation;  from  the  blood  of  Abel  unto  the  blood 
of  Zachariah  .  .  .  Yea,  I  say  unto  you  it  shall  be  re- 
quired of  this  generation".    Lk.  xi.  50,  51. 

15.  "Whosoever  shall  be  ashamed  of  me  and  of  my 
words,  of  him  shall  the  Son  of  man  be  ashamed  when  He 
cometh  in  His  own  glory,  and  the  glory  of  the  Father 
and  of  the  holy  angels.  But  I  tell  you  of  a  truth,  There 
be  some  of  them  that  stand  here  which  shall  in  no  wise 
taste  of  death,  till  they  see  the  kingdom  of  God".  Lk. 
ix.  26,  27 ;  Matt.  xvi.  28. 

16.  "With  desire  have  I  desired  to  eat  this  passover 
with  you  before  I  suffer.  For  I  say  unto  you  I  will  not 
eat  it  until  it  be  fulfilled  in  the  kingdom  of  God  ...  I 
will  not  drink  henceforth  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine  until  the 
kingdom  of  God  shall  come".  Lk.  xxii.  15.  "Verily  I 
say  unto  you,  I  will  no  more  drink  of  the  fruit  of  the 
vine  until  that  day  when  I  drink  it  new  in  the  kingdom 
of  God".  Mk.  xiv.  25  ;  "until  I  drink  it  new  with  you  in 
my  Father's  kingdom".  Matt. 

17.  "The  high  priest  asked  Him  and  saith  unto  Him: 
Art  thou  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Blessed  ?  And  Jesus 
said :  I  am ;  and  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  man  sitting  at 
the  right  hand  of  power,  and  coming  with  the  clouds  of 
heaven".     Mk.  xiv.  61-62 ;  Matt.  xxvi.  63,  64. 

18.  "And  as  He  sat  on  the  mount  of  Olives  the 
disciples  came  unto  Him  privately  saying:  Tell  us  when 
shall  these  things  be,  and  what  shall  be  the  sign  of  thy 
ooming;  and  of  the  end  of  the  world.     And  Jesus  an- 


262  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

swered  and  said  .  .  .  Many  shall  come  in  my  name  say- 
ing I  am  the  Christ  ...  Ye  shall  hear  of  wars  and 
rumors  of  wars  .  .  .  Nations  shall  rise  against  nation 
.  .  .  there  shall  be  famines  and  earthquakes  in  divers 
places  .  .  .  they  shall  kill  you ;  you  shall  be  hated  of  all 
nations  for  my  name's  sake.  Many  false  prophets  shall 
arise  .  .  .  And  this  Gospel  of  the  kingdom  shall  be 
preached  in  the  whole  world  for  a  testimony  unto  all  the 
nations,  and  then  shall  the  end  come.  When  ye  see  the 
abomination  of  desolation  standing  in  the  holy  place 
.  .  .  then  let  them  that  are  in  Judea  flee  unto  the  moun- 
tains .  .  .  woe  unto  them  that  are  with  child  .  .  .  then 
shall  be  great  tribulation  .  .  .  there  shall  arise  false 
Christs  ...  if  they  shall  say  unto  you  Behold,  he  is  in 
the  wilderness,  go  not  forth!  Behold,  he  is  in  the  inner 
chambers!  believe  it  not.  For  as  the  lightning  cometh 
forth  from  the  East  and  is  seen  even  unto  the  West,  so 
shall  be  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man  .  .  .  But  im- 
mediately after  the  tribulation  of  those  days  the  sun  shall 
be  darkened  and  the  moon  shall  not  give  her  light  and  the 
stars  shall  fall  from  heaven,  and  the  powers  of  the 
heavens  shall  be  shaken  and  then  shall  appear  the  sign 
of  the  Son  of  man  in  heaven  .  .  .  and  they  shall  see  the 
Son  of  man  coming  on  the  clouds  of  heaven  with  power 
and  great  glory.  And  he  shall  send  forth  His  angels 
with  a  great  sound  of  a  trumpet  and  they  shall  gather 
together  His  elect  .  .  .  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  This 
generation  shall  not  pass  away,  till  all  these  things  be 
accomplished  .  .  .  But   of   that   day   and   hour   no  one 


Christ's  kingdom  263 

knoweth  not  even  the  angels  of  heaven,  neither  the  Son, 
but  the  Father  only".  Matt.  xxiv.  cf. ;  Mark  xiii. ;  Lk.  xxi. 
These  texts  I  transcribe  just  as  our  Gospels  give  them. 
Into  the  question  of  the  genuineness  of  some  of  them  I 
will  not  enter,  since  it  would  be  beside  my  present 
purpose.  Certainly  some  of  the  passages  of  the  last  made 
citation  were  not  spoken  by  our  Lord ;  but  taken  as  they 
are,  the  foregoing  excerpts  embody  substantially  the 
eschatological  teaching  of  the  Gospels,  and  as  such,  what 
conclusions  respecting  the  important  question  with  which 
we  began,  do  they  warrant  ?  I  venture  to  think  that  they 
substantiate  the  following  positions : 

1.  Our  Lord  was  preoccupied  to  a  high  degree  with 
the  end  of  the  present  "world",  the  judgment  following 
upon  that  catastrophe,  and  the  advent  in  glory  and  power 
of  Messiah,  and  the  Messianic  kingdom. 

2.  Our  Lord  seems  to  share  the  profound  conviction 
of  His  time  and  of  his  Precursor,  that  those  mighty 
events  were  near,  very  near.  The  very  fact  that  He 
thought  of  them  so  much,  that  He  spoke  of  them  almost 
constantly,  and  that  in  direct  reference  to  them  He 
uttered  His  most  solemn  warnings  and  startling  vaticina- 
tions, proves  that  He  believed  them  to  be  already  "at 
the  door",  hanging  over  the  heads  of  "this  generation", 
as  close  at  hand  as  are  the  signs  of  a  storm  to  the 
tempest  behind  them.  That  our  Lord  should  have  so 
spoken,  and  been  so  absorbed  in  the  thought  of  the 
world's  end  and  the  glorious  coming  of  the  Son  of  man, 
if  these  divine  manifestations  were,  in  His  mind,  two, 


264  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

ten  or  twenty  thousand  years  in  the  future,  wears  the 
look  of  a  simple  impossibility.  If  we  add  to  this,  the 
consideration  of  the  immediate  environment  in  which 
Christ  grew  up,  penetrated  as  it  was  with  just  such 
eschatological  ideas  as  His  words  express,  we  have  the 
best  of  reason  for  at  least  respecting  those  students  and 
scholars  who  hold  that  Christ  was  under  the  impression 
of  His  contemporaries  that  the  end  of  the  world  and  the 
coming  of  the  Messianic  era  were  imminent. 

3.  Our  Lord  distinguished  two  "moments"  in  the 
Messianic  advent.  The  first  is  humble,  inconspicuous, 
and  seen  only  by  those  that  have  faith.  The  second  will 
be  the  resplendent  thaumaturgy  of  the  approach  of  the 
Son  of  man  in  clouds  and  with  His  angels.  The  former 
of  course  refers  to  His  own  appearance  among  men.  He 
was  a  peasant,  the  son  of  a  carpenter ;  His  disciples  were 
poor;  His  converts  few.  How  could  He  be  Messiah? 
Christ's  answer  is :  "The  kingdom  cometh  not  with 
observation" ;  it  is  as  leaven  hid  in  three  measures  of 
meal ;  as  a  mustard-seed  which  is  the  least  of  seeds.  But 
the  Son  of  man  will  soon  come  not  in  lowliness,  but  with 
majesty.  Some  of  those  that  stood  listening  to  Him 
should  not  taste  death  till  the  kingdom  come.  The  day 
of  that  victorious  appearance  is  meanwhile  to  be  an  object 
of  prayer  and  desire.  "Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of 
heaven".    "Thy  kingdom  come !" 

4.  To  this  abiding  conviction  of  Christ  that  the  king- 
dom was  at  hand  may  be  attributed  a  certain  part  of  the 
Gospel's    apparently    impossible    asceticism.      That    we 


Christ's  kingdom  265 

should  give  up  all  earthly  care ;  that  we  should  take  no 
thought  for  food  or  raiment ;  that  we  should  disregard 
the  holiest  affections  of  the  human  heart,  are  counsels 
which  would,  if  carried  out  by  the  majority  of  men,  de- 
stroy civilization  utterly.  They  can  be  understood  as 
rational  only  when  they  are  viewed  from  the  standpoint 
of  a  faith  which  saw  all  that  was  earthly  crumbling  away 
before  the  on-coming  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 

5.  Our  Lord  is  widely  separated  from  those  seers  of 
Israel,  from  Daniel  to  fourth  Ezra,  who  entered  into 
precise  calculations  as  to  when  the  great  end  would  come. 
The  day  and  the  hour  no  man  knew.  The  angels  knew 
it  not ;  nor  did  even  the  Son.  But  that  it  would  come  to 
pass  within  the  life-time  of  many  that  saw  and  heard 
Him,  His  own  words  expressly  declare. 

6.  In  the  earlier  part  of  our  Lord's  ministry,  the  evi- 
dence seems  to  bear  out  the  assertion  that  He  did  not 
regard  His  own  death  as  intervening  before  the  great 
consummation.  He  seems  to  have  looked  for  the  Mes- 
sianic "day"  at  almost  any  hour.  When  He  sent  out  the 
disciples  on  their  first  mission  He  ordered  them  not  to 
go  among  Gentiles  or  Samaritans,  for  they  should  not 
have  finished  the  cities  of  Israel  before  Messiah  would 
come  in  glory.  His  success  in  healing  the  possessed 
immensely  confirmed  this  expectation.  It  was  funda- 
mental in  the  Jewish  belief  of  the  time,  that  Messiah 
would  destroy  the  kingdom  of  Satan.  When  therefore 
Christ  expelled  Satan  from  afflicted  bodies,  it  was  a 
striking  proof  that  the  Messianic  age  had  come.    Christ 


266  FAITH   AND  CRITICISM 

says  so  Himself.  "If  I  by  the  spirit  of  God  cast  out 
devils,  then  is  the  kingdom  of  God  come  among  you" 
(Matt.  xii.  28;  Lk.  xi.  20).  And  when  the  disciples 
returned  from  their  mission  with  the  thrilling  news  that 
the  devils  were  subject  to  them  in  His  name,  Christ, 
as  we  may  say,  fell  into  an  ecstasy  of  victory.  He 
rejoiced  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  said:  "I  beheld  Satan 
falling  as  lightning  from  heaven"  (Lk.  x.).  With  Satan 
cast  down,  Messiah  who  had  conquered  him,  must  soon 
enter  into  the  glory  of  the  new  kingdom,  for  the  de- 
throning of  the  one  must  mean  the  speedy  crowning  of 
the  other.  But  as  Christ's  ministry  went  forward,  and 
encountered  failure,  hardness  of  heart,  hypocrisy  and  the 
impregnable  power  of  the  Pharisees ;  as  finally  it  became 
clear  that  Jerusalem  which  had  killed  the  prophets  would 
also  kill  the  Galilean  prophet;  the  Lord,  with  His  in- 
vincible trust  in  the  Father,  looked  upon  His  threatened 
death  as  part  of  the  Providential  scheme,  and  predicted 
that  soon  after  He  should  die,  He  would  come  in  the 
majesty  of  Messiah  glorified.  In  those  closing  days  of 
His  career  on  earth  it  was,  that  He  addressed  Jerusalem. 
"Behold  I  say  unto  you :  Ye  shall  not  see  me  henceforth 
till  ye  shall  say:  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord!"  (Matt,  xxiii.  39).  At  the  last  supper, 
rising  in  sublime  confidence  above  the  darkness  and 
agony  that  were  closing  in  about  Him,  He  said:  "I  will 
not  eat  it  [this  passover]  until  it  be  fulfilled  in  the  king- 
dom of  God.  I  will  not  drink  henceforth  of  the  fruit  of 
the  vine  until  that  day  when  I  drink  it  new  with  you  in 


Christ's  kingdom  267 

my  Father's  kingdom".  And  at  the  trial  He  warned  the 
high  priest:  "Ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  man  sitting  at  the 
right  hand  of  power,  and  coming  with  the  clouds  of 
heaven".  I  state  this  opinion  that  Christ  came  to  con- 
sider His  death  as  a  necessary  immediate  preparation  for 
the  "coming  with  the  clouds  of  heaven" ;  while  recog- 
nizing it  as  possible  that  He  looked  forward  to  the  event 
as  about  to  happen  even  before  His  enemies  could  send 
Him  to  the  cross.  The  awful  words :  "My  God,  My  God, 
why  hast  Thou  forsaken  me !"  go  far  towards  supporting 
such  an  inference. 

7.  The  one  or  two  texts,  such  as  that  which  says  that 
the  Gospel  must  be  preached  to  all  nations  before  the 
end  come,  which  appear  directly  to  contradict  this  ex- 
pectation of  our  Lord  in  an  imminent  advent  of  the 
Messianic  kingdom,  have  but  a  dubious  standing  in  face 
of  the  massive  evidence  of  practically  the  entire  Gospel 
to  the  contrary.  These  isolated  texts  probably  arose 
among  believers  to  explain  the  delay  in  Messiah's  glorious 
coming. 

A  practically  conclusive  demonstration  that  the  Lord 
believed  in  and  taught  the  near  advent  of  Messiah's  reign 
is,  that  primitive  Christianity  passionately  shared  this 
conviction.  The  fourth  Gospel  tells  us  that  the  early 
Christians  believed  that  Christ  had  said  that  the  Messiah 
would  return  in  glory  before  the  beloved  disciple  died. 
When  that  hope  was  disappointed,  those  who  had  trusted 
in  it  had  to  be  admonished  that  "Jesus  said  not  unto  him 
that  he  should  not  die ;  but :  If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I 


268  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

come,  what  is  that  to  thee?"     St.  Paul  voices  the  same 
great  hope:  "When  Christ  who  is  your  life  shall  be  mani- 
fested, then  shall  ye  also  with  Him  be  manifested  in 
glory"   (Col.  iii.  4)  ;  "We  that  are  alive,  that  are  left 
unto  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  shall  in  no  wise  precede 
them  that  are  fallen  asleep.     For  the  Lord  Himself  shall 
descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout,  with  the  voice  of  the 
archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of  God.     Then  we  that 
are  alive,  that  are  left,  shall  together  with  them  be  caught 
up  in  the  clouds  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air".    "But  con- 
cerning the  times  and  the  seasons,  Brethren,  ye  have  no 
need  that  aught  be  written  unto  you.    For  you  yourselves 
know  perfectly  that  the  day  of  the  Lord  so  cometh  as  a 
thief  in  the  night.     When  they  are  saying:  Peace  and 
safety ;  then  suddenly  destruction  cometh  upon  them,  as 
travail  upon  a  woman  with  child,  and  they  shall  in  no 
wise  escape.     But  ye  brethren  are  not  in  darkness  that 
that  day  should  overtake  you  as  a  thief  ...  so  then  let 
us  not  sleep  as  do  the  rest,  but  let  us  watch  and  be 
sober".     "May  your  spirit  and  soul  and  body  be  pre- 
served entire  without  blame  at  the  coming  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  .  .  .  Faithful  is  he  that  calleth  you  who  will 
also  do  it"  (1  Thess.  iv.  and  v.).     Second  Thessalonians 
is  an  answer  to  the  murmurings  and  doubts  so  frequent 
in  the  eaily  Christian  communities,  as  month  followed 
month,  and  year  followed  year,  and  still  the  Lord  came 
not.     "Be  patient  therefore  Brethren  until  the  coming 
of    the    Lord  ...  Be    ye    also    patient;    Stablish    your 
hearts,  for  the  coming  of  the  Lord  is  at  hand  .  .  .  Be- 


Christ's  kingdom  269 

hold  the  judge  standeth  before  the  doors"    (James  v.). 
Doubters  and  scoffers  are  themselves  made  a  sign  of  the 
"last  day"  in  the  second  epistle  attributed  to  St.  Peter. 
"In  the  last  days  mockers  shall  come  with  mockery,  walk- 
ing  after   their    own    lusts   and    saying:    Where   is   the 
promise  of  his  coming?  for  from  the  day  that  our  fathers 
fell  asleep,  all  things  continue  as   they   were   from  the 
beginning  of  the  creation.  .  .  .  But  forget  not  this  one 
thing,    Beloved,   that   one   day   is    with   the    Lord   as   a 
thousand  years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one  day.    The 
Lord  is  not  slack  concerning  his  promise,  as  some  count 
slackness ;  but  is  long-suffering  toward  you,  not  wishing 
that  any  should  perish,  but  that  all  should  come  to  re- 
pentance.    But  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  come  as  a  thief, 
in  the  which  the  heavens  shall  pass  away  with  a  great 
noise,  and  the  elements  shall  be  dissolved  with  a  fervent 
heat,  and  the  earth  and  the  works  that  are  therein  shall 
be  burned  up.  .  .  .  What  manner  of  persons  ought  ye  to 
be   in    all   holy   living   and   godliness,   looking   for,   and 
earnestly  desiring  the  coming  of  the  day  of  God  .  .  . 
According  to  His  promise  we  look  for  new  heavens  and 
a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness"   (2  Peter 
iii.).    And  the  Apocalypse  after  a  detailed  description  of 
the  end  of  the  world  says :  "Behold  I  come  quickly". 
"I,  Jesus,  have  sent  mine  angel  to  testify  unto  you  these 
things  for  the  churches.    I  am  the  root  and  the  offspring 
of  David,  the  bright,  the  morning  star.     And  the  spirit 
and  the  bride  say !    Come.     And  he  that  heareth,  let  him 
say,   Come".      "He   which   testifieth   these   things    saith  : 
Yea!  I  come  quickly.   Amen.   Come,  Lord  Jesus"!  (xii.). 


CHAPTER  VI. 
"What  Think  Ye  of  Christ?" 

DO  those  sincere  students  of  the  Gospel  who  feel  con- 
strained by  stress  of  evidence  to  hold  that  Christ 
was  under  the  impression  that  the  end  of  the  world  was 
near,  thereby  destroy  His  authority,  and  remove  Him  from 
the  spiritual  headship  of  humanity?  So  their  orthodox 
critics  incessantly  charge.  We  are  accused  of  making 
our  Lord  a  senseless  fanatic,  the  victim  of  the  wildest 
delusions  that  ever  misled  an  unstable  brain ;  of  removing 
from  Him  every  right  to  honor,  reverence,  and  even 
respect;  and  of  destroying  the  very  foundation  of 
spiritual  life,  for  that  foundation  is  and  can  be  none  other 
than  Christ  Jesus.  Some  criticisms  go  even  further,  and 
at  least  imply  that  if  a  single  point  of  the  Catholic  creed 
be  found  mistaken,  it  is  all  over  with  morality,  and 
nothing  is  left  but  animal  gratification,  a  purposeless  life, 
and  a  hopeless  death. 

This  last  imputation — to  notice  it  first — can  find  lodg- 
ing only  in  minds  that  have  never  had  a  glimmer  of 
understanding  of  what  religion  and  the  human  Spirit 
mean.  Were  never  a  Bible  written  nor  a  Church  estab- 
lished, not  one  ray  would  be  lessened  in  the  resplendent 
divinity  of  duty ;  not  one  accent  would  be  lost  of  the 
constraining  voice  of  conscience.     We  need  no  written 

270 


"what  think  ye  of  christ"  271 

page  and  no  prophet's  word  to  understand  that  virtue  is 
our  nobility  and  sin  our  shame.  Whether  tongues  cease, 
or  prophecies  fail,  or  oracles  be  dumb,  we  knew  that  our 
heart's  aspiration  and  our  conscience's  clear  demands, 
are  toward  that  Ideal  which  men  call  God.  Could  we 
read  these  our  higher  destinies  and  duties  written  by  a 
divine  hand  in  letters  of  fire  across  the  sky,  we  should 
not  be  more  sure  of  them,  and  ought  not  to  be  more  im- 
pressed by  them,  than  when  we  scan  them  in  the  solemn 
warnings  and  the  holy  affections  which  are  within.  No 
man  is  more  to  be  pitied  than  one  who  throws  the  whole 
venture  of  his  life's  purpose  and  end  upon  the  interpreta- 
tion of  a  text  or  the  correctness  of  a  theology.  As 
though,  forsooth !  his  own  soul  were  dumb,  his  heart 
lifeless,  his  conscience  inarticulate.  Though  towards 
such  a  one  we  should  feel  not  indignation  but  pity,  still 
we  cannot  forbear  sharing  the  resentful  impatience  of 
Matthew  Arnold: 

"Man  is  blind  because  of  sin, 

Revelation  makes  him  sure; 
Without  that  who  looks  within, 

Looks  in  vain,  for  all's  obscure". 

Nay,  look  closer  into  man ! 

Tell  me,  can  you  find  indeed 
Nothing  sure,  no  moral  plan 

Clear  prescribed,  without  your  creed? 


272  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

"No,  I  nothing  can  perceive! 

Without  that  all's  dark  for  men. 
That  or  nothing  I  believe". 

For  God's  sake,  believe  it  then! 

No,  the  foundation  of  religion  is  not  destroyed,  the 
basis  of  morality  not  disturbed,  the  gravity  of  our  life's 
responsibility  not  impaired,  whatever  become  of  books 
and  formulas.  In  the  immortal  spirit  of  man  is  the 
immortal  message  of  man's  God-sonship.  Whoso  reads 
it  not  there,  will  but  feebly  discover  it  elsewhere. 

Does  this  new  interpretation  of  Christ  dethrone  Him 
from  a  place  of  primacy  as  the  Teacher  of  our  souls  ? 

Unquestionably  it  is  a  momentous  departure  from 
venerable  views.  It  certainly  implies  that  we  cannot  look 
upon  the  Prophet  of  Galilee  as  the  very  absolute  infinite 
eternal  Deity.  But  when  did  he  ever  say  that  He  was? 
Not  once.  A  wholly  unique  place  in  God's  designs,  a 
peculiar  privilege  of  divine  filiation,  He  claimed.  But 
that  He  was  the  everlasting  God !  He  never  made  so 
awful  a  pretension.  That  meek  child  of  the  Father,  that 
candid,  trustful,  courageous,  humble  Personality — are  we 
not  justified  in  saying  that  He  would  have  repelled  the 
suggestion  that  he  was  God  Almighty  as  a  fearful 
blasphemy  ? 

God  was  His  life,  His  love,  His  enthusiasm.  To  God 
He  prayed:  to  God  He  lifted  up  His  sigh  of  zeal,  and 
His  cry  of  agony.     But  that  He  was  God,  that  awful 


"WHAT  THINK   YE  OF  CHRIST''  273 

Infinite  beyond  the  spaces  of  the  stars,  and  beneath  the 
foundations  of  the  world, — impossible ! 

Can  we  understand  what  our  words  mean,  when  we 
say  that  the  baby  in  Mary's  arms  was  the  Absolute  ?  that 
the  carpenter's  apprentice  was  the  Creator  of  heaven  and 
earth?  that  the  man  who  said  He  knew  not  the  hour  of 
judgment,  for  the  Father  alone  knew  it;  who  in  the 
anguish  of  Gethsemane  prayed  that  not  His  will  but 
God's  be  done ;  who  in  that  awful  collapse  of  human 
strength  upon  the  cross  cried  that  God  had  forsaken 
Him ;  can  we  understand  what  our  words  mean,  when 
we  say  that  He  Himself  was  the  Eternal  to  whom  He 
prayed  for  strength,  and  unto  whom  He  groaned  in  deso- 
lation? To  maintain  this  is  not  only  a  hopeless  scandal 
to  our  intellect,  but  the  most  grievous  shock  to  our 
spiritual  sense.  Lift  Jesus  as  high  as  we  may;  grant 
Him  a  union  with  the  Godhead  such  as  no  other  man  may 
share ;  kneel  before  Him  as  showing  forth  to  us  the  moral 
perfection  of  Deity,  so  far  as  a  created  nature  can ;  but 
Infinity,  Omnipotence,  Omniscience,  these  He  Himself 
has  disclaimed. 

Of  what  avail  to  us  could  Jesus  be  if  He  were  very 
God?  How  could  His  temptation  sustain  us  in  ours; 
His  prayer  be  a  model  for  ours ;  His  disappointments, 
sorrows  and  sufferings  bring  any  relief  to  ours ;  if  in 
these  experiences  of  heart  and  soul  and  body,  He  en- 
joyed the  happiness  of  infinite  beatitude  all  the  time? 
This  would  reduce  His  whole  life  to  a  kind  of  panto- 
mime.    Temptation  could  mean  nothing  for  Him.     Suf- 


274  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

fering  coexistent  with  Deity's  boundless  blessedness  is 
incomprehensible.  Supplication,  discouragement  and  dis- 
tress in  one  who  possesses  the  fulness  of  infinite  being, 
can  be  but  a  dumb  show,  which  contains  not  the  slightest 
rational  meaning  for  our  finite  lives. 

But  Jesus  as  the  foremost  of  God's  prophets  and  the 
sovereign  spirit  among  humanity's  saints  and  martyrs; 
Jesus  as  our  brother,  has  a  meaning  and  a  divine  meaning 
for  us.  What  though,  reacted  upon,  as  all  human  exist- 
ence is,  by  environment  and  current  ideas,  He  accepted 
the  belief  that  the  "new  heavens  and  the  new  earth"  were 
near,  and  interpreted  (if  He  did  so)  His  leadership  and 
His  message  in  terms  of  His  nation's  theology,  as  mes- 
sianic ;  how  small  a  thing  is  that  extrinsic  feature  of  His 
Gospel,  in  comparison  with  the  absolute  and  everlasting 
value  of  His  life  and  spiritual  teaching.  The  early  Greek 
converts  themselves,  to  whom  Messiahism  was  meaning- 
less, disregarded  these  Jewish  elements  in  Christ  and  con- 
ceived Him  after  the  Hellenic  manner,  as  the  Logos  of 
God.  Why  then  may  not  we  likewise  disregard  them? 
Why  may  not  we  in  our  turn  look  upon  Him  in  the  more 
human  mode  of  developed  religious  understanding,  and 
hail  Him  as  our  divinest  Witness  to  things  spiritual  and 
unseen,  the  holiest  Preacher  of  human  charity,  the  ever- 
living  bond  of  human  brotherhood?  He  teaches  us  the 
divinity  of  love ;  trust  in  a  Father-Spirit  to  whom  we, 
His  wayfaring  children,  may  kneel,  firm  in  the  confidence 
that  He  hears  the  suppliant's  cry  and  accepts  the  peni- 
tent's contrition;  mercy  toward  the  afflicted;  gentleness 


"what  think  ye  of  christ"  275 

toward  all;  purity  of  heart;  cleanness  of  thought;  no- 
bility of  motive;  attention  to  the  hidden  springs  of  ac- 
tion rather  than  to  external  demeanor ;  responsibility  to  a 
righteous  Deity ;  hope  that  God  and  goodness  will  in  the 
end  prevail  against  hypocrisy,  brutality  and  sin ;  enthu- 
siasm for  lofty  purposes  which  earthly  standards  cannot 
appreciate  nor  carnal  senses  see;  courage  that  is  estab- 
lished upon  the  pillars  of  eternity;  charity  that  scorns 
the  boundaries  of  race  and  caste  and  orthodoxy ;  unselfish 
service  that  would  bid  us  take  the  cloak  from  our  own 
back  to  clothe  the  naked,  and  give  the  bread  from  our 
own  table  to  feed  the  hungry ;  and  over  all  and  inter- 
fusing all,  the  spirit  of  reverence,  mysticism  and  prayer, 
whereby  we  live  as  before  the  Father's  face,  and  as  not 
forgetful  of  the  just  judgment  of  God. 

This  is  the  divine  Gospel  of  Jesus — a  Gospel  which, 
had  He  never  uttered  it  in  words,  we  could  read  in  His 
incomparable  life.  This  is  why  He  is  the  glory  of 
humanity  and  the  most  holy  creation  of  Almighty  God. 
This  is  why  we  cling  to  Him;  why  He  cannot  cease 
forever  to  be  the  object  of  the  highest  loyalty  and  the 
most  tender  love  of  human  hearts.  He  is  our  Christ, 
our  Anointed.  We  have  given  our  lives  to  Him,  as  our 
Leader,  Captain,  best-beloved  Lord.  In  separating  our- 
selves from  theological  theories  concerning  Him  to  which 
we  think  His  authentic  utterances  give  no  support,  we 
do  not  separate  ourselves  from  Him  as  He  was  in  reality 
and  in  truth.  He  still  is  ours  as  Teacher  and  Savior, 
though  we  cannot  believe  that  He  came  to  give  a  blood- 


276  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

satisfaction  for  the  sin  of  Adam,  whom  He  never  men- 
tioned ;  and  though  we  deem  it  intellectually  incompre- 
hensible and  ethically  impossible  that  the  sovereign  pur- 
pose of  His  life — again  unwarranted  by  any  word  of 
His — was  as  a  God-Son  to  "satisfy"  a  God-Father's  jus- 
tice and  wrath  by  suffering  for  transgressions  of  which 
He  was  wholly  innocent. 

Christ  remains,  though  these  poor  primitive  theories 
fall — and  remain  He  must  while  humanity  can  worship 
goodness,  and  believe  in  the  soul's  intimations  and  intu- 
itions of  the  world  unseen. 

Epilogue. 

It  may  occur  to  some  that  there  is  a  notable  incon- 
sistency in  these  letters.  For  whereas,  in  the  first  part 
of  them  I  urge  reforms  that  are  merely  of  discipline  and 
administration,  I  express  views  in  the  latter  part  which 
openly  conflict  with  theological  standards  of  faith.  What 
possible  interest  can  I  have,  it  may  be  asked,  in  acci- 
dental reforms,  when  I  have  made  shipwreck  of  ortho- 
doxy itself?  Suppose  the  Church  made  all  the  changes 
in  non-essential  points  which  are  here  suggested,  it 
would  not  bring  her  one  step  nearer  the  more  vital  modi- 
fication of  dogma  for  which  I  have  just  been  arguing. 

This  last  statement  I  absolutely  reject — and  in  reject- 
ing it  I  think  I  avoid  the  inconsistent  position  which  may 
appear  on  the  surface.  In  pleading  for  charity,  justice 
and  simplicity  in  official  Roman  Catholicism,  I  profoundly 
believe  that  I  am  thereby  urging  the  first  step  of  a  process 


EPILOGUE  277 

that  must  end  with  destroying  the  existing  rigidity  of 
dogma.  As  has  been  said  already,  the  ultimate  solution 
of  our  present  religious  difficulties  lies  not  in  criticism, 
history,  philosophy,  theology  or  any  other  intellectual 
exercise  in  which  contention  is  endless  and  agreement 
impossible.  It  lies  rather  in  the  development  of  spiritual 
life.  With  growth  in  the  apprehension  of  spiritual  values, 
in  the  understanding  of  the  true  and  essential  function 
of  religion,  the  accidental  outgrowths  and  the  subsidiary 
by-products  with  which  religion  is  still  unfortunately 
confused  and  entangled,  will  disappear.  When  God, 
Christ,  and  the  soul  of  man,  are  made  the  all-in-all  of 
religion,  we  shall  be  one,  because  we  shall  have  reached 
the  fundamental  and  the  sole  ground  of  concord.  We  are 
divided  now,  because  human  elaborations  of  theology, 
human  conjectures,  human  ambitions,  human  antipathies 
sunder  us.  But  these  things  cannot  withstand  the  ma- 
ture and  perfect  religious  sense.  Some  of  them  must 
wholly  fall  away,  and  the  others  be  reduced  to  their 
proper  category  of  the  provisional,  temporary,  and  non- 
essential. The  day  that  shall  see  mankind  conceding 
the  holy  name  of  religion  to  naught  else  than  love  of  God 
and  man,  undefiled  worship,  and  unselfish  service,  will 
also  witness  the  downfall  of  the  poor  system  in  which  we 
have  fondly  fancied  we  could  confine  the  Eternal.  The 
more  we  contemplate  Love,  Truth  and  Service,  the  more 
we  shall  wonder  that  we  could  ever  have  confined  these 
ideals  to  the  forms  of  philosophies,  theologies  and 
hierarchies. 


278  FAITH   AND   CRITICISM 

In  urging,  therefore,  disciplinary  and  administrative 
reforms  in  the  Roman  Catholic  division  of  Christendom, 
I  have  been  aiming  all  along  at  the  higher  and  holier  end 
of  hewing  away  the  intellectual  barriers  which,  to  the 
most  grievous  injury  of  pure  religion,  are  keeping  Chris- 
tians apart.  Let  charity  but  reign  in  the  province  of 
religion,  superstition  be  cast  aside,  and  secularity  abol- 
ished, and  I  am  convinced  that  dogmatic  formulas,  as 
finalities,  will  follow  them  in  the  course  of  time.  The 
cleansing  of  the  spiritual  sense  to  the  extent  of  enabling 
it  to  see  that  true  religion  must  dispense  with  supersti- 
tion and  brutality,  will  also  purify  it  in  due  season  to  the 
extent  of  revealing  to  it  that  our  relations  with  Deity 
are  too  interior  and  too  lofty  to  be  shackled  by  the  the- 
ologies of  past  ages  immeasurably  less  enlightened  than 
our  own.  Time  was  when  the  representatives  of  religion 
declared  that  God  commanded  men  to  denounce  their 
neighbor  to  the  Inquisition,  to  steal  his  property,  and  to 
put  him  to  death.  The  widening  and  deepening  of 
human  charity  has  put  an  end  to  these  atrocities.  Again 
have  there  been  ages  when  the  official  vicegerents  of  high 
heaven  have  bidden  nations  in  the  name  of  God  to  depose 
their  sovereigns  at  the  nod  of  a  Pope.  The  growth  of 
freedom  has  abolished  that.  Today  from  the  same  seat 
of  ecclesiastical  authority  the  discredited  voice  speaks 
once  more,  commanding  us  to  reject  modern  scholarship, 
and  to  confine  our  intellects  forever  to  the  metaphysics 
of  the  Nicsean  theologians  of  the  fourth  century,  and  of 
the  Tridentine  speculators  of  the  sixteenth.     With  the 


EPILOGUE  279 

deadly  certainty  of  human  evolution,  this  dictate,  too, 
must  fall  and  pass  away  before  the  majesty  of  indepen- 
dent Truth.  And  as  religion  in  its  immortal  and  essential 
elements  shone  only  the  more  brilliantly  with  the  death 
of  the  Inquisition. and  the  downfall  of  the  deposing  power, 
so  will  it  still  exist,  and  be  of  fairer  countenance  than 
ever,  when  it  emerges  from  its  grave-clothes  of  theology, 
and  speaks  its  compelling  word  from  the  spirit  of  God 
to  the  spirit  of  man. 

This  last  step  in  the  long  evolution  of  religion  will  be 
hastened  by  every  plea  for  fraternity,  by  every  protest 
against  tyranny,  by  every  denunciation  of  superstition. 
Wherever  there  is  a  notable  good-fellowship  between 
Catholic  and  Protestant,  there  inevitably  results,  though, 
it  may  be,  unconsciously  to  those  directly  concerned,  a 
diminution  of  the  importance  of  their  respective  theolo- 
gies, and  a  recognition  that  with  God  sincerity  and  an 
upright  conscience  are  of  incomparably  vaster  importance 
than  the  official  formulas  of  creeds.  The  logical  end  of 
this  will  be  the  placing  of  religion  upon  its  proper  basis 
of  personality  and  character,  and  the  considering  of  dog- 
matic metaphysics  as  merely  subsidiary  and  unessential. 

In  urging  then,  Popes,  Curias  and  hierarchies,  to  cast 
aside  their  ancient  tyranny,  to  abandon  secular  ambitions, 
to  destroy  superstitions,  and  to  use  their  great  power  for 
the  promotion  of  philanthropy,  brotherhood,  the  cultiva- 
tion of  character,  freedom  social  and  freedom  intellectual, 
I  am  convinced,  as  I  have  said,  that  I  am  recommending 
a  great  and  necessary  advance   toward   the  day   when 


28o  FAITH  AND   CRITICISM 

transcendental  speculations  on  the  Inscrutable  will  domi- 
nate and  divide  us  no  longer;  but  the  eternal  principles 
of  undefiled  religion  and  Christ's  blessed  spirit  will  unite 
us  in  a  federation  of  kinship  to  one  another,  and  of  son- 
ship  to  God,  freed  forevermore  from  the  dissensions  born 
of  creeds,  and  so  often  consummated  at  the  stake,  and 
going  forward  together  in  concord  and  peace,  toward  the 
divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves. 


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